It’s MLR 2024 Post Season Week 2! The Conference Finals - or Championship Semi Finals. Before we go there tho, we have to address the pickocalypse. Houston had a 93% pick rate last week, meaning only 2 pickers predicted a Dallas upset. And 2/3rds of those picking Houston also picked NOLA… yikes!

Amazingly(?) the 2 Dallas picks also picked Chicago, so we have Ranger Frank and Ranger Lil Payne with a Quarter Final clean sweep! 6 more players got 3 picks right (all failed by Houston). So our table has a fresh look.

All is not lost! The first round was 2 points per correct pick. We now move to round 2 which has 3 points per correct pick which means a possible 6 points. Unfortunately for 71% of the pickers, their WCF prediction is already blown (64.5% for Houston, 6.5% for San Diego), as well as 16% of ECF picks (13% for NOLA and 3% for OGDC). Will this mean a strategy shift for next years picks?

The regular season leaders picked the following for the semi finals, all but Beaver Paw losing out on a chance at maximum points:

Beaver Paw:  NEFJ, SEA
Ranger Horkan: NEFJ, SD
Bozo6: NEFJ, HOU
Dingo: NEFJ, HOU
MLR Stats: NEFJ, HOU

The 2023 OG pickers fell victim to the QFs in different ways, leaving only Freejack fitzy with a shot at 6 points. Ranger Bunny losing out with NOLA falling to Chicago and Rugby Morning let down by OGDC:

Bozo6:  NEFJ,  HOU
Freejack fitzy: NEFJ, SEA
Ranger John: NEFJ, HOU
Ranger Bunny: NOLA, SEA
Rugby Morning: OGDC, SEA
Ranger Payne: NEFJ, HOU

How about our new leaders? We should see some separation this week - Ranger Frank has Seattle winning at home, where as Lil Payne sees Dallas continuing to upset in the West.

Ranger Frank: NEFJ, SEA
Ranger Lil Payne: NEFJ, DAL