Skee Nerd’s Skeeson X Breakdown

Watching the skeeson unfold from 131.8 miles away has been exciting [Editor’s Note: The fact you google mapped that is pretty amazing!]. Not being able to play, not going to lie, has sucked; but seeing the first 500 Club roller (Pat Bassett) and more perfect games (Chuck Labbee and Chris Martin [Editor’s Note: Chris did it last skeeson as a sub]) being rolled has been exciting and I’m sad I have missed it. That being said, as you all enter the final week before playoffs, and the week where you solidify your seed in the High Rollers Tournament, there is only one way really to evaluate who’s hot and who’s not… Wednesday Okay, so for convenience sake (and because there are only 20 colors possible for my graphs), I have broken down my analysis into the Top 20, and those ranked 21-40. So, for your Top 20, Figure 1 here does a terrible job at really teasing apart who stands where; but, what it is good at showing is that there is a lot of overlap among the top 20 rollers on Wednesday night and everyone has had good weeks and bad weeks. Now, although some rollers’ good weeks are a 501 (Pat Bassett), and bad weeks are a 386 (Jenn Foxon), overall there is a lot of score overlap in the top 20. Now, where it gets interesting is when looking at trends over the past 7 weeks (Figure 2). Figure 1. Top 20 rollers on Wednesday night. Rollers seeing the greatest increase in scores through the skeeson (Figure 2A), and at risk of placing added pressure on these rollers in the final week of skee, are Pat Bassett (currently ranked 1), Jenn Foxon (ranked 2), Pat Flaherty (ranked 4), Ian Palmer (ranked 9), and Ashley Taylor (ranked 15). Scarily, these rollers are your top rollers with 3 out of 5 in the top 5 and, given these trends, may be difficult to catch at this point. On the flip side Stephanie Burgess (currently ranked 5), Sam Reidy (ranked 10), Christina Chen (ranked 13), Jamie Bergstein (ranked 17), and Brendan Keegan (ranked 18) are the 5 rollers with the greatest downward trend (Figure 2B).  Although Sam’s decline really is negligible and Brendan’s is small, given that many rollers are steadily improving from week to week, these data may suggest a forthcoming change in the rankings following week 8 and leading into the playoffs. Figure 2. Best (A) and worst (B) trending rollers on Wednesday. Now, Figure 3 are your rollers ranked 21-40. But again, although these figures are colorful (and maybe the real reason why I’m including them in my post), they do a terrible job at showing specific trends in the data. Perhaps all I can really say from this figure is that Shalini killed it in week 7 with a 343, and Tim followed a near 300 roll in week 6 with a not so great roll last week. Figure 4 however, breaks down what I am really seeing with rollers 21-40 and it suggests again that the rankings are far from solidified. Figure 3. Rollers 21-40 on Wednesday night. That being said, Keven Lapoint, Alex Carr, Shalini Patel, Dan Wohleber, Alex Hartl, and Digyna Patel are serious contenders for shaking things up in the post-skeeson (Figure 4). With serious improvement in their scores from week 1 to now, I have titled this graph “Watch Out Wednesday,” because Wednesday, you better watch out for these rollers. Figure 4. Rollers to watch out for on Wednesday night. Thursday As for Thursday, Figure 5 is again a mess. Aside from clearly seeing that Chris Martin has set himself apart from the rest of the pack beginning in week 3, and Chris Trott rolled a season low near 250 in week 7, it is best to look at trends to see who is heating up just in time for playoffs, and who peaked too soon. Figure 5. Top 20 rollers on Thursday night. The 5 rollers on Thursday night who are on an upward trend since week 1 (Figure 6A) include Chris Martin (currently ranked 1), Kyle Lortie (ranked 6), Thomas Martin (ranked 7), Eric Siegel (ranked 11), and Allison Mallett (ranked 17). Again, it may be a little defeating seeing that the number 1 roller on Thursday night is on fire, but balancing these data with the top rollers that are seeing downward trends (Figure 6B), notably Chuck Rogers (ranked 4) and Everett Phillips (ranked 5), again suggests that the rankings are likely going to change before playoffs…well, except for Chris Martin. He’ll be at number 1. Other rollers seeing large downward trends include Devin Mcdonald (ranked 14), Troy Sargent (ranked 15), Chris Trott (ranked 16), and Robyn Woodman (ranked 19). Figure 6. Best (A) and worst (B) trending rollers on Thursday. As for your rollers ranked 21-40, little really can be inferred from this figure (Figure 7). Maybe it is worth picking out that Christina Cusalito (currently ranked 22) has had the highest score of this bunch with a 350+ in week 5. Or that Dave Francis (ranked 31) in week 7 topped all other rollers in the 21-40 category. But really, the trends are what makes these data interesting (Figure 8). Figure 7. Rollers 21-40 on Thursday night. Watch out Thursday for Jamie Charles, Jan Harrington, Rob Bouchard, Brady Zupan, Dave Francis, and Jeff Wagner (Figure 8). The trends with these rollers are ridiculous. With Brady #2 showing up this skeeson, and Jamie, Jan, Rob, Dave, and Jeff rolling on average better each week, I’m again betting that one or all of these rollers will make a splash in the playoffs. Thursday, you’ve been warned. Figure 8. Rollers to watch out for on Thursday night. Now having called out a lot of people, for better or for worse, I do this in good fun (…but in my defense individuals have been called out solely based on the data!).  Also worth noting, my predictions have been wrong more often than they have been right, as has been brought to my attention on a few occasions.  What this suggests is that come playoffs anything can happen, and it usually does, with top seeds being upset and wild cards coming out of nowhere.  On that note, miss you all and good luck in week 8! Skee Nerd out. [Editor’s Note: I think I just had a seizure with all those colors… but awesome breakdown as always!]