MATT NEATOCK
Est. 2003
LAST SEASON
2023 did not prove to be one of Neatock’s finest seasons, despite making a third straight trip to the playoffs. He dropped his first two games and through six weeks he was just 2-4, topping 1,400 only twice. In week seven, he came across a cold Vozzola and defeated Don, despite failing to score 1,000 (913 – 637). That was the first of three straight wins. All three games he failed to sniff 1,400. He suffered back-to-back defeats to drop him 5-6, struggling to hold off Bob for one of the final playoff spots, but he had his best game of the season in week 12, scoring 1,638 in a win over Calderon. He split his final two to finish at .500. He earned the 7-seed, despite finishing ninth in scoring.
In the playoffs, he pulled off a classic 7-over-2 upset in the quarterfinals, defeating Griff by producing his highest point total of the season (1,643 – 1,355). However, his team had the worst outing of the season the following week in the semifinals and Matt fell to Colby, 1,487 – 843.
CAREER
Matt Neatock’s career sorta reminds me of the Connecticut Huskies basketball team. A team that’s often not that great and doesn’t reach the dance often, but when they do, they’re almost always successful. In fact, UConn has reached the Final Four only seven times, yet have won it all six of those time. Matt is similar.
Overall, Neatock isn’t even a .500 team. He’s lost more games than he’s won, yet he is tied with Bob for the second most titles in the league’s history. His first four seasons were nothing to write home about. He produced only one winning seasons, finished last once and made the playoffs twice; losing in the quarterfinals in both tries. However, behind keepers like Adrian Peterson and Wes Welker, Matt managed to win two titles, one in 2007 and another in 2009, with a dead last finish sandwiched between.
Then for the next seven years, Matt was sorta just there. In 2010 and 2011, he made the playoffs, but lost in the quarterfinals. In 2012 and 2013, he missed the playoffs, finishing 9th both years. In 2014, he won eight, reached the finals and came up one-point short of stunning Bob for that title. He won eight games in 2015 and reached in the semifinals (losing to Griff) before finishing dead last in both points and the standings in 2016.
But then, Matt leaped a ton of people to join the greatness conversation by winning back-to-back seasons in 2017-2018. In the former, he won nine, earned a scoring title and did what no one had ever done, beat 1-seed Bob in the finals. The following year, he went just 6-7, but a trade with me that couldn’t have worked out any better, propelled him back to the finals where he defeated Calderon as the 7-seed.
Since those two championships, Matt has reached the playoffs in four of the last five seasons, despite only producing two actual winning seasons. He’s gone 4-0 in the quarterfinals since that time, placing him in the semifinals four times. He reached his sixth finals game (third most in league history) in 2022, but fell to Colby.
FUN WITH NUMBERS
The overall numbers are…Matt is 153-154, one game below .500, which is 7th best in the league. He averages 1,340 points per game, which is fifth best ever. His average finish in the standings is 6.62 and his average finish in points is 6.29. Both are 8th in the league. For his career, he has six title game appearances (third most ever), four championships (tied for second most), plus two scoring crowns and one top seed. On the flip side, he’s finished dead last three times and last in scoring twice.
He’s reached the postseason in 14 of his 21 seasons in the league. His 66.7% is 7th best. He has a .655 winning percentage in the playoffs (19-10), which is the second best in league history. He averages 1,489 points per contest in the playoffs. That’s also second best ever. Overall in the postseason, he’s 9-4 in the quarterfinals, 6-3 in the semifinals and 4-2 in the finals.
When it comes to postseason points, Matt has done well. He has five of the top-35 games scored, led by his 2,128 points in the 2017 quarterfinals. His 2009 semifinals victory over Calderon proved to be the fifth largest ass-kicking in league history, 1,072 points (1,950 – 878). He has five of the top-35 ass-kicks in league history. When it comes to combined points, Matt has performed in five of the top-21 combined scores in the playoffs, led by his 2017 game against Jeff in the semifinals. Matt beat Jeff, 2,019 – 1,681. Their combined 3,700 points is the fourth most ever scored.
Most impressively, when it comes to most points score in a full postseason, Matt has both the top and third most points scored. In 2009, his team scored 5,390 points on their way to his second title (3rd most). However, in 2017, his boys scored 5,684 total points (1,894 PPG), which is the most ever scored in a postseason.
In total, Neatock has played 307 career games. In those games, he has topped 1,500 28.66% of the time (6th most), while his foes have done it 25.08% of the time (10th most). He’s failed to hit a grand in 14.01% of his games (6th most), while his opponents have failed 15.31% of the times (7th most). He has produced a weekly high score in 7.19% of his contests, which is the exact same amount of weekly low scores he’s produced. His opponents are better at both. His foes have delivered a weekly high in 9.35% of his games, which is the third most, while they have delivered a weekly low in 8.99% of his games, which is also third most.
Speaking of highs and lows, Matt once went 50 weeks without sniffing a weekly low score (2008-2012). That was the 6th longest streak in league history. However, he is sorta of the king of having a lot of streaks without a weekly high. Of the top 35 longest streaks without a weekly high score, seven belong to Neatock. Four times he’s done it 33 straight weeks. His longest streak is 42 weeks (2018-2021), which is the 13th longest streak.
As for other streaks, Matt’s longest winning streak was seven games (2009-2010), which is tied for 21st longest. His longest losing streak is also seven games (2016), which is tied for 13th longest. While he was the first person to play 24 straight games scoring over 1,000, he’s no longer that top dog. His longest streak is 29 straight (2010-2012), this is tied for ninth longest. He did once score over 1,250 in 12 straight (2010-2011), which is tied for fifth straight.
As for single game stats…Matt has four of the top 14 highest scoring games by a single team, led by his 2,338 points in a 2007 win over Bob. That’s the fourth most points scored in a contest. Of the top-35 highest combined scoring games, Matt was involved in seven of those contests. The best being a 2022 defeat to Don, where he lost 2,061 – 1,840. The 3,901 points is the fifth most ever scored. In 2013, he beat Griff by 1,334 points (2,207 – 873). That was the 5th biggest ass-kicking ever. The 1,840 he scored was the 7th most points scored in a defeat. On the flip side, he once beat David, 853 – 745. The 1,598 combined points is the 22nd lowest scoring game in league history.