By CASEY CANNON

Hello and Welcome to the Soccer by Ives Fantasy Corner – now running on energy efficient jelly beans! Every week I dig through statistics, news, and rumors to provide the reader with the kind of fantasy advice that only a stats geek can provide.

The deadline TONIGHT. The deadline is FRIDAY NIGHT. The deadline is FRIDAY NIGHT.

Don’t forget to make changes before 8:15 PM tonight. With five teams off everyone needs to adjust lineups this week. Forgetting will be a disaster. The people you are trying to catch won’t forget.

Gratz to this weeks SBI winner CominWitMoore with 79 points. Submersiblegoat leads both the SBI league and the whole universe with 373 points. Want to catch the U-goat? Read the advice below.

TEAM PICKS

Take Three – Portland. This is a team that can score, playing at home against a Houston team that doesn’t travel well. Portland is good for two goals with a chance of a shutout but probably giving up one goal.

Take Three – SKC.  The Ivy Funds haven’t given up any goals at home this season. DCU haven’t scored any away goals this season.  Throw in some data from last year to fix the sample size and the results remain the same.

Avoid – DC United.  The fighting sequesters go on the road against SKC.  The absence of Dwayne DeRosario makes it even less likely D.C. United finds the net so I expect them to be shut out.  Defensively, there is no way DC keeps a clean slate this weekend I expect them to give up two goals (though Bill Hamid is always capable of a Superman performance like we saw against New York).

INDIVIDUAL PICKS

Captain – Zusi, SKC.  Averages 10 PPG.  If he is not on your team please leave a comment to explain why.

Value – Josh Williams, Columbus.  To understand how good he is his 7.2 points per game puts him ahead of Higuaín and Le Toux.  The Akron boy is 7th for points per game and 8th in value.  This guy should be on every squad.

Overpriced – Young-Pyo Lee. Last year this guy was Money. The secret sauce for some really good fantasy teams. Right now he is 87th for value and behind players like Zach Loyd, the still overpriced Chad Marshall and Olave. That is correct, a Red Bulls defender is a better value.

THE FULL THREE PLAYER MONTE GAME

The three-card Monte game has two elements selecting three players to score goals and creating a streak by picking captain who scores every week.  The players can be awful, tossed out of the game for reprehensible fouls, and single handedly responsible for costing his team the game the only thing that matters is scoring goals.  Right Fire fans?

1.     Captain: Wondo, SJ.
2.     Bieler, Sporting KC
3.     Valeri, Portland

Tiebreak: 16

That’s all for today. Come back next time for more MLS fantasy notes and this years MLS Jersey Sponsor Rankings.

Performance last week:

Hours of NCAA basket ball watched – 0
Hours of baseball watched – 0
Hours of the U5 soccer team “the Chipmunks” watched – 4