2015 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 8

The coalition returns for another week of NFL picks against the spread!

We were all pretty bunched together in Week 7, with one game separating each picker, and it has resulted in a three-way tie for second place (because bear in mind, I accidentally had the wrong pick on ESPN back in like Week 2 so I'm behind a game) amongst our group. Adam remains in the lead despite my taking three of our five disputed games last week.

In terms of the hypothetical money line, Adam had a slightly down week last week and is now only up about $200 for the year starting from Week 2. I think I stayed around even for the week, but I'm still down over $1400. The lesson again: gambling is bad.

This week, Adam and I differ on seven games out of the 14. Let's take a look at the slate.

2015 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 9

We're onto yet another week of college football, and hopefully after this weekend I can start building a mock bracket for the Death to the BCS Playoffs.

Conference play has done a pretty good job of weeding out a lot of the remaining undefeated teams, and it will continue to do so as we get down the home stretch, but there are still a fair number of non-conference games left on the docket. Last week only had a couple games that really impacted any of the numbers, but a couple weeks are coming that will really throw a monkey wrench into the rankings.

After the jump I will rank each conference based on its cumulative Non Conference Schedule Strength average, including this week's score and a comparison to where they stood last week.

2015 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 8

Sweet, sweet chaos.

Two more undefeated teams fell out of that realm, leaving us with 12 for the nation eight weeks in. I was hoping that this week would be when I could start doing mock brackets, but with the way the 12 are distributed, I would still be forced to leave an undefeated team out. Unfortunate.

Instead, I'll stick with updating Playoff Points and leave it at that and NCSS rankings for now. I'd have to assume next week I can start looking a little deeper.

If you need a refresher on how Playoff Points work, you can refer back to my Week 1 post. With a little bit over a month to go, here is where each conference stands.

Waiting Till Next Year

It's a common refrain we hear on the North Side of Chicago: "Wait 'till next year." It's, sadly, a refrain that we've heard for 107 years and counting. And now, we have to hear it for another year.

Late in 2011, the Cubs made sweeping changes to their administration, bringing in Theo Epstein from Boston to be the president of baseball operations, and begin a full fledged rebuild. I knew then that the next few years would be painful, but like Theo said, "There's a day coming." To a degree, that day is here.

Two incredibly painful years followed a year of some guarded optimism as the pieces began to fall into place. The prospects were lining up, and 2015 was beginning to see projections for the beginning of contention, even though Theo himself said that he was expecting 2016 at the earliest to be contention time. Instead, the Cubs arrived a year ahead of schedule. I correctly had them third in the NL Central behind St. Louis and Pittsburgh, but even I underestimated just how quickly this team would come together and make a run.

This was the first baseball season though that I had really looked forward to. I made it to Milwaukee to see the Cubs in early May, and got to see Kris Bryant hit his first Major League home run. Less than a week later, Kristen and I made the annual pilgrimage to Wrigley for a game, and it was a long day that turned out quite all right. Games like that set the stage for a fun summer filled with walkoffs, watching the young guys grow up before our very eyes, and see an ace turn into one of the best pitchers in baseball. It all culminated in a trip to October, earlier than expected.

As I'm sure you can imagine, I enjoyed the fact that the Cubs knocked off Pittsburgh in the Wild Card game, and even more so the elimination of the Cardinals at the Cubs' hands while the morons amongst the Cardinal fan base whined. I was all but on cloud nine. Then the NLCS started.

I don't know that I've ever been more frustrated by a baseball playoff series. Ultimately though, I have to tip my cap to the Mets. They were clearly the better team, and they've absolutely earned the right to play in the World Series. They're going to be a challenge for whoever comes out of the American League. I developed a sports hate for Daniel Murphy in the span of a week, but I can let go of it. Dude got hot at the right time; it happens.

It's depressing to see your team's season end when the hopes were so great, especially given Cubs history. I'm a veteran of the 2003 and 2008 heartbreak, so it doesn't surprise me that on all of the days the Cubs could have been eliminated, much less in a sweep, it's on the day where Marty McFly came to the future in Back to the Future II and found out the Cubs won the World Series. Of course, because he changed the future/past, he altered that timeline and probably made it so that the Cubs wouldn't win it. Time travel hurts my head.

The heartbreak has, to a degree, subsided this morning. I'm bummed, sure, but I'm still optimistic. Unlike the prior years, you can see that the foundation is in place for this summer's success to be sustained. This core will be around for years to come. Obviously, tweaks need to be made (i.e. the Cubs need more pitching), but I trust Theo to make the right moves.

2016 may not be The Year. But it has just as good a chance as any other to be, and I look forward to seeing what this team has in store.

2015 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 7

Funny how a week can change things.

I was flying high after a phenomenal Week 5... then Week 6 happened. Adam went 4-0 on hero picks because regression to the mean doesn't make any sense and he ended up taking seven of eight disputed games to rebuild a massive lead, then did a mic drop when he emailed me his picks.

There's still a lot of time left, and Adam overcame a larger deficit to make last season interesting, but he had far and away the best week out of anyone in our group to own a huge first place gap.

Money line wise, Adam was in line for more money with his contrarianism, and it earned him a huge payday. After being slightly down last week, he's now up roughly $400 since Week 2, while I lost all my gains from last week, and then some, falling to -$1200. Thankfully, no real money is being bet here other than the $20 I put down on Detroit and Minnesota for Week 1 while I was in Vegas... that was a waste.

The NFL returns to London this week for one of its 14 games, and for the first time will be broadcast only online. For this week though, Adam and I disagree on only five picks. This isn't too bad, actually. Let's take a look at the picks.

2015 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 8

I think at this point, we're officially halfway done with the regular season in college football. With the exception of Navy, everyone has played at least six games (and Navy has played five games), so we're starting to get down to the nitty gritty of the season.

Last week we finally advanced to the point where I can pretty neatly summarize every conference's out of league slate in one sentence, which makes this whole post so much cleaner. We also saw minimal changes in the numbers last week, something that will probably remain true once again this week.

So below, I will look at every conference and rerank them from last week based on their non-conference schedules for the whole season.

2015 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 7

Two more undefeated teams got knocked off on Saturday, leaving us with 14 still unblemished. However, because they are centralized in a few conferences, we still can't start setting up mock brackets. Even so, we can still update the Playoff Points rankings.

Things have probably changed a little bit from Week 6 with some crazy finishes and chaos near the top, though most of the establishment remains in clear control roughly halfway through the college football season. Of course, even though win total rankings are probably going to remain fairly constant, playoff points have been fluctuating depending on the winners each week.


If you need a refresher on how Playoff Points work, you can refer back to my Week 1 post. Now, through seven weeks of football, here is where each conference stands.

2015 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 6

Five weeks are in the books, and the ship is getting righted.

After Adam went 0-3 on hero picks in Week 5 and lost four of the five disputed games, his lead has narrowed. The group as a whole is pretty well clustered together, with him and defending champion Geoffrey Clark tied atop the leaderboard, while I'm just four games back and my dad is just one behind me (bearing in mind that an entry error on one of my picks a few weeks ago cost me a point on ESPN). The fun note that I saw was that we all swept the late afternoon games on Sunday, which might be a first.

Money-wise, I'm starting to gain some ground again. After being about a grand in the whole from Weeks 2-4, I gained $400 last week to get to about $600 down. Adam, meanwhile, fell just short for the week of breaking even and is now $40 in the hole. Still better than me, obviously, but the gap is narrowing.

After last week's closer semblance of groupthink, Adam and I disagree on an eight games of the 14. You can also view my straight up picks over on UKEndZone. Anyway, with a chance for me to tie or take the lead again, let's get to the spread picks.

2015 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 7

We're onto another week of college football, and I pushed this post back a day in observance of my wife's birthday yesterday. Today, we're back to football.

We've actually had a somewhat volatile system with this this year, as I think I've seen three separate weeks where one conference finished with a negative score for the week, and this is all before the SEC shows how spineless it is. It's coming in a month, trust me. Last week was one of the negative score weeks, but it came as a result of that one FCS game being the only out of conference game for the league. I think, for the most part, we're past this nonsense (again, at least until the SEC plays Coward Week).

Below, I will reveal the weekly scores for each conference, and sort every conference by their cumulative average for the season to date.

2015 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 6

The good news: We are down to just 16 undefeated teams left out of 128 at the highest level of college football. The bad news: they are still heavily centered in the power conferences to the point that based on the format of the Death to the BCS Playoffs, I still can't start making mock brackets.

Nonetheless, Week 6 provided a lot of drama and some great games while continuing to narrow the field. Week 5 saw the start of some stability in the rankings, as we're in full-fledged conference mode, so win total rankings are going to largely remain constant from here on out. Playoff Points, however, are bound to start seeing some fluctuations as teams with strong showings out of conference may find nightmarish situations in their conferences.

If you need a refresher on how Playoff Points work, you can refer back to my Week 1 post. Here's an updated look at the numbers.

2015 NBA Tournament of Champions: Championship

It's taken over three months, but we're finally here. Several rounds and 619 games later, we've narrowed the field down from the last 64 NBA champions down to two. And with it, Chicagoans have rejoiced.

In one corner, we have an underdog. After making the quarterfinals in 2013 and losing a heartbreaking seventh game to that year's Miami Heat, they had time to plan their revenge. They were the best defensive team in their high-scoring, Celtic-heavy group, but dropped a pair of games by three points total to the 2006 Heat, finishing 9-5 and in second place in the group. In Elimination play, they knocked out another 2013 quarterfinalist in the 1988 Lakers, survived a seven game war with the 1987 Lakers, then knocked out a pair of tournament juggernauts in the 1971 Bucks and, maybe more surprisingly, the 1986 Celtics. Now the 1991 Chicago Bulls are just four wins away from further immortality, but they have a massive challenge ahead.

In the other corner, we have the heavy favorite from before the tournament started. After losing four games total in the 2013 Tournament, the defending champions found themselves in something of a "Group of Death", but went 12-2 and earned the tiebreaker against the aforementioned '71 Bucks thanks to beating them twice to win the group and earn the number four overall seed. They got more than they bargained for in the Elimination round, getting a rematch of their 2013 quarterfinals series with the 1972 Lakers only to see themselves pushed to the brink, but they overcame adversity by winning a pair of elimination games to survive and advance. They erased any doubts in the next round despite a strong performance from Hakeem Olajuwon and the 1994 Rockets. They got a quarterfinal rematch with the third place team from their group, but the 1985 Lakers were no match. Having to cede home court advantage for the first time in their Tournament of Champions history, they weren't fazed by a raucous crowd in Oakland and took care of business against the top-seeded 2015 Warriors. The 1996 Chicago Bulls are back where they belong: in the championship round and just a few wins away from successfully defending their throne.

Like the past 30 series in the Elimination Round, this will be a best of seven played in a 2-2-1-1-1 format. Because they are a group winner, the 1996 Bulls will have home court advantage for the series. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. It is now time to crown a champion.

2015 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 5

The coalition is back for Week 5, and I feel much, much better.

After an awful two week stretch, I rebounded a little bit, finishing a hair above .500 for the week, which doesn't seem that great, but everyone else had a down week. I've ended up with a lot of "hero" picks, but this week I went 3-0 in those to get back into contention. And to think, as a group we went 1-4 on unanimous picks. Alas.

Either way, I'm now back into the thick of the race four weeks in after taking five of the eight disputed Week 4 games. Adam sent along our current winnings were we betting $100 on each game from Week 2 onward. I got about a four percent return on investment in Week 4, but would still lead me about a grand in the hole, while Adam's rough week ended well enough to keep him just above water at about $67 of profit. I'll try to keep updating this as best as I can on a weekly basis.

This week with four teams on bye, we have 14 games to pick. We finally have some semblance of groupthink a month into the season, as we only disagree on five games, way down from our average of over eight per week. It means Adam's lead is safe for now, but also likely means we won't see much movement in the standings. Let's get to the picks.

2015 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 6

We're onto yet another week of college football, and conference play is now in full swing.

The Week 5 rankings saw most of the placings settled in at this point, since this metric focuses on play outside of conference boundaries. There will still be scattered games played out of conference over the next few weeks due to the independents, and a few teams still have non conference foes on their schedule, including the annual The SEC Are Cowards Week coming up in a little over a month.

So below, I will include for each conference the non-conference score for the week, the cumulative score for the season (both values averaged), and their ranking from last week. Let's take a look.

COAS Hands Out 2015 MLB Awards

The 2015 Major League Baseball regular season has come to a close, and in a way, I'm kind of sad about it. After a few years of shoddy baseball on the North Side of Chicago, the Cubs finally put together a team worth watching, and they're playing in October. I don't want it to end.

With the playoffs beginning tomorrow and no tiebreaker games on the books this week, it's time for me to continue my annual tradition of handing out awards. As I'm not a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, I can get away with this.

I've been pretty on the money the last few years in terms of picking the award winners. Let's give it another go.

2015 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 5

We're getting closer to the point where I can start making mock brackets. Five weeks into the college football season, just 19 teams remain undefeated. It might be a while yet still, because most of these unbeatens are concentrated in the major conferences and haven't played each other yet. Once we get to a point where I can set up the 16-team bracket and not drop any undefeated teams out of the bracket, I'll start working on the mocks.

It was an intriguing week overall in college football though as the cream of the crop starts to emerge. With conference play underway, odds are most of the Week 4 rankings will remain constant into this week, at least in terms of win totals because everyone is beating up on everyone else. Playoff Points are probably where we'll start to see some change.

If you need a refresher on how the Playoff Points system works, you can look back to my Week 1 post. Here are the updated rankings.

2015 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 4

We're back for another week of picking games against the spread, but I'm bummed coming into the fourth week of the season.

I had a historically bad week last week, with Adam winning eight of our ten disputed games. It propelled him to a phenomenal week and the kind of massive lead I'm used to being on the right side of instead of staring up at. Clearly, something needs to change.

So this week, I debated about going gimmicky like Adam did last year, but I think with three weeks' worth of games, I can manage on my own. I hope.

Adam and I had discussed this in past weeks, but over the past couple weeks he has been going to topbet.com to put in our picks based on the ESPN lines and see what would happen if we were to bet $100 on every game. He wasn't able to find data for Week 1, but has data from each of the past two weeks. Thanks largely to his phenomenal Week 3, he has a 112 percent return on investment, good for an almost $400 profit for the last two weeks. By contrast, I'm sitting on a hypothetical loss of well over $1000. The lesson, as always: gambling is bad.

The byes begin this week with New England and Tennessee off this week, so there are only 15 games this time. For the week, Adam and I disagree on eight of the 15 games. It's been a pretty contrarian first four weeks. Let's get to it.