2021 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 17

I have to get used to the fact that this is not the end and that there's one more week.

I'm actually kind of glad though, because as the coalition returns for the penultimate week of the 2021 campaign, I still have a little work to do.

We went podcast this past week, and while I took three of five from Adam, five of seven from Joe, and Adam took five of eight from Joe, Adam still maintains a five game lead in the group with 32 to play. You can view how we've all picked in relation to each other here.

The lack of a Thursday night game means we got to push back the schedule a little bit compared to normal, so this went live on a Friday. Poor Adam noted with his picks that he was so looking forward to a crappy Thursday night game and now he's got nothing.

As we get set to make our picks for the final time in 2021, Adam and I disagree on six games. Joe unfortunately didn't get his picks in on Thursday night at editing time, but I'll add his in after the fact if they come in.

From all of us here at Confessions of a Sportscaster, have a safe and happy New Year! Let's get to the picks.

2021 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 16

The coalition is back at it as we have just three weeks left in the NFL season!

It was a great showing for Adam this past week as he took four of five disputed games from me, four of six from Joe, and Joe took three of five from me. You can view how we've all picked in relation to each other here.

Given that we're approaching Christmas, Adam happened to be in town. Since he's in town, and schedules happened to align where Joe was also free... our Week 16 picks were done in podcast form. You can find that after the jump.

From all of us here at Confessions of a Sportscaster, have a safe and Merry Christmas!

2021 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 15

Just four weeks remain, and the coalition is tightening up in our quest to pick NFL games against the spread.

Adam maintains his three game lead through 14 weeks as we split our four disputed games; Joe took three of five from me and four of seven from Adam. But it was Jim who was the big mover this week with a dominant Sunday effort, only missing on that Niners-Jags overtime game, and then on Monday night. He's now in a tie for third, but Adam and I have a few games' worth of cushion at the top. You can view how we've picked in relation to each other here.

With COVID ravaging professional sports, we decided that for this week, mulligans are free if a team has a key player announced out due to protocol that would have one of us change our pick. I haven't used one yet this year; Adam has used a couple.

This week, byes are done, so we're back to the full 16 game slate. Adam and I disagree on five games, Joe and I on six, and Joe and Adam on seven. Let's get to it!

Game Notes: (MBK) Illinois Wesleyan University @ North Central College (12/15/21)

Final Score
IWU 73, NCC 48

Game Summary
The Cardinals (4-3, 1-1) opened the game with back to back threes and had me optimistic about the proceedings. But the Titans (8-1, 2-1) fought back and for a brief moment it seemed like we'd have a nice back and forth on our hands. The Cardinals scored to go up 12-9 with 13:35 to go in the first half. And then it all went to hell, as North Central went without a basket for ten minutes as the Titans scored 25 unanswered points. A late Cardinal surge cut it to 36-20 Titans by halftime, and a decent early push in the second half got it to 39-26 IWU. But the Titans slowly built the lead back up and the Cardinals would get no closer.

Key Players

• Peter Lambesis (IWU): 6-8 FG (0-2 3PT), 3-3 FT; 15 pts, 4 reb, 7 ast, 2 stl. Hard to pick just one or two guys given the good balance this Titan team had, but Lambesis led all scorers in this one and got his teammates involved. A good performance.
• Cory Noe (IWU): 4-7 FG (all 3PT); 12 pts, 1 reb, 1 blk. I could have gone with Luke Yoder (13 pts) or Matt Leritz (11-7), but Noe hit a few big threes for this Titans team that really got the Titan fans in the building going. Again, sheer balance.
• Blaise Meredith (NCC): 4-9 FG (1-5 3PT), 1-3 FT; 10 pts, 7 reb, 1 stl. Not a lot of good picks for the Cardinals tonight. Blaise hit a three on the opening possession and seemed poised for a good night, but he struggled the rest of the way on offense. He got his rebounds and tied for the game-high there, but that was about it.

Key Stats

• NCC: 17-52 FG (32.7%). That includes a 4-23 mark from three (17.4%). The Cardinals missed 15 in a row during that almost ten minute drought. And that was pretty much the ballgame.
• IWU: 27 points off 16 NCC turnovers. That's an impressive number. There were a few fast break opportunities for the Titans, but they also took advantage of dead ball turnovers as well. North Central, for its part, forced 16 turnovers as well, but only got nine points off them.

CCIW Scoreboard Watch

• WBK: @ IWU 74 (5-4, 3-0), NCC 59 (4-6, 1-1)

Final Thoughts
I'm just gonna leave this here.

https://t.co/uJ4IOeKSrr pic.twitter.com/siiXBJoQ0J

— Lucas Mitzel🎙 (@northsider89) December 16, 2021

There wasn't much to get excited about as a Cardinal fan. This Titan team came in ranked fourth in the country, and showed they deserve that ranking. This was a butt kicking.

The Cardinals are off on the road now for a while, with a game at Millikin on Saturday, a swing through Michigan to hopefully right the ship, then a couple games in Orlando before gettting back into the gauntlet. They'll need to be ready on this trip, because they need to get right with some tough games on the docket.

2021 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 14

The coalition returns as we have just a few weeks left of this NFL season!

I ended up shooting my shot last week, but went 0-3 on my hero picks. Miraculously though, Adam and I split our six disputed games, leaving me still just three out of first place. Joe didn't submit picks last week, so we didn't track how he did in comparison, though he's climbing back into the race a little bit.

You can view how we've all picked in relation to each other here. This week, Adam and I disagree on just four games out of 14. Joe is also back after a week off; he and I disagree on five games, while he and Adam disagree on seven. Let's get to it!

2021 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Official Bracket

And now for one of the most fun features I do on a yearly basis.

The FBS regular season is officially complete, the College Football Playoff has its bracket, which also means it's time to unveil this year's Death to the BCS Playoff bracket!

I spent some time Sunday afternoon finalizing metrics, then spent a bunch of time looking over data points to pick the at large teams, and then seed the field. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in my season opener, but let's go over the primary criteria one more time.

• Record. This is a given. An undefeated team is getting in. A one loss team is all but a lock to get in. Two losses puts you in decent shape, but you need help. You get the idea.
• Playoff Points. This comes in three types.
• First Degree Playoff Points (PP1). A team receives one point for the number of wins of each opponent they defeat. For example, a two win team that beat a six win team and a one win team would have seven points.
• Second Degree Playoff Points (PP2). This is the average number of First Degree Playoff Points by each opponent they defeat. Back to that two win team example, the six win team had 20 PP1, and the one win team had zero, resulting in a PP2 for our example team of 10.00.
• Adjusted Playoff Points (aPP). The same as First Degree Playoff Points, except the number of losses by each opponent that defeated a team is subtracted from the score. As an example, an 11-1 team whose only loss was to an undefeated team would have an identical aPP to their PP1, but an 11-1 team whose lone loss came to a 6-6 team would have six points deducted from their PP1 to calculate their aPP.
• Computer rankings. Formulas created by Jeff Sagarin (SAG), the late David Rothman (ROTH), and the website All My Sports Teams Suck (AMSTS) are synthesized into an average score, but are also looked at individually.
• Record versus Playoff Opponents. As opposed to "wins versus playoff opponents;" if you lose to a playoff team that's not necessarily a bad thing. Wins versus playoff teams, obviously, are a better thing, but an 0-1 record against playoff teams is arguably better than a 0-0 mark, all other things being equal. Obviously, this means head to head results come directly into play.
• IMPORTANT NOTE: This gets recalculated multiple times throughout the process. We start with just the automatic bid teams as being considered, then as each at large team is selected, the numbers get rerun.

Additionally, I do my best to avoid first round rematches unless seedings more or less force my hand (if, say, the 1-16 game would be a rematch but I feel like I can't avoid it without screwing over the #1 seed). Higher seeds host through the first three rounds, before the title game gets played at the Rose Bowl the same night as the national title game. I also want to note from the outset (and if you read the preview for this past week, you'd have seen this), but Baylor is banned from the Death to the BCS Playoffs because they should have gotten the death penalty for covering up sexual assault. Call it the Joe Paterno Rule, as Penn State got banned first.

I'm going to go over the rationale for everything after the jump. In the interest of drama... let's go to the podcast for the bracket reveal.

Game Notes: (MBK) Carthage College @ North Central College (12/4/21)

Final Score
NCC 91, Carthage 59

Game Summary
Looking at the final score, you might be surprised that it was the Firebirds (4-3, 0-2) that got off to a hot start, getting an easy layup followed by back to back threes on their first three possessions for an 8-0 lead just two minutes in, forcing a pissed off Todd Raridon to call timeout. Whatever he said worked though, as the Cardinals (4-1, 1-0) responded with a 13-3 run that forced Steve Djurikovic to take one for Carthage. The Firebirds tied it out of the timeout, but a 7-0 Cardinal run gave them control once again, and while Carthage stayed close for a while, the Cardinals slowly pulled away, taking a ten point halftime lead, then survived the early Firebird push that cut it to six, and other than a brief moment where they cut it back to nine a couple minutes later, the Cardinals led by double digits the rest of the way, pushing the margin to 20 with seven and a half to play, and the end of the bench got it over 30 in the final couple minutes.

Key Players

• Matt Helwig (NCC): 10-18 FG (4-5 3PT), 7-7 FT; 31 pts, 9 reb (1 off), 7 ast, 1 stl. Matt Helwig is making an early case for First Team All-CCIW. He's had some huge games out of the gate for the Cardinals, and was huge for them here. He scored NCC's first seven points and 10 of the first 13 to get the Cardinals back into it, then poured it on as the game continued. Adding in all the rebounds and assists (including a couple really nice ones) was the icing on the cake.
• Ethan Helwig (NCC): 9-16 FG (3-5 3PT), 4-6 FT; 25 pts, 3 reb, 1 ast. Ethan had the other three of those first 13 points, but stayed involved throughout the rest of this one, hitting from both outside and inside. While he didn't contribute as much to the box score as Matt did, this has probably been Ethan's best game of his young NCC career.
• Fillip Bulatovic (CAR): 7-18 FG (0-4 3PT), 5-13 FT; 19 pts, 8 reb (2 off), 4 ast, 1 blk, 1 stl. Bulatovic is one of the best players in the CCIW, and has played some great games at Merner Fieldhouse. This wasn't a bad one... but it wasn't great, either. He had a rough night at the line, and shot okay, though NCC defended him pretty well throughout. He's going to get his, but the Cardinals made him work for it. Bulatovic also got T'd up in this one... more on that later.

Key Stats

• NCC: 12-19 3PT (63.2%). My vocal cords got a workout tonight. They really got this going after that first timeout when Matt Helwig buried a three and got fouled for a four point play to literally cut the Carthage lead in half... something that's really hard to do with an eight point lead. Ethan had a good night as well, Shea hit a few big ones, Blaise got one before Todd Raridon called off the dogs, and Human Victory Cigar Barak Diehl hit a couple in garbage time to push the final margin over 30.
• CAR: 9-20 FT (45.0%). I feel like it's cheating to go with threes for both teams, and there's not a lot else to look at when you lose by 32, so we'll go with a stat that has to be somewhat alarming for the Firebirds. As noted above, a lot of these misses were by Bulatovic. He missed his first two tries of the game, prompting a joking "Time to try the Hack-a-Fillip" from the official scorer, but it's weird how on the money he was. This is something the Firebirds will need to clean up if they want to compete in the CCIW this year.

CCIW Scoreboard Watch

• @ MIL 70 (5-3, 1-0), AUG 45 (4-4, 0-1)
• @ ELM 76 (7-1, 1-0), WHE 75 (7-1, 1-1)
• Jake Rhode hit a halfcourt shot at the buzzer
• @ IWU 63, (7-0, 1-0), CRL 44 (3-4, 0-1)
• Illinois Wesleyan retains possession of The Belt^TM
• Eastern Illinois 76, NPU 71 (3-2, 0-0)
• Game does not count toward's NPU's record

Final Thoughts

This was, admittedly, kind of a weird game even beyond those dueling scoring runs in the first couple of minutes. Both teams ended up getting flop warnings (NCC had one by I think Ethan Helwig late in the first half after a three attempt, Carthage got one trying to draw a charge), and after the Carthage one there was a brief stoppage of play. Things got weirder later when Fillip Bulatovic got fouled on a shot attempt, and immediately afterwards, Carthage's Nemi Ostojic got a technical foul, though I didn't see for what. This resulted in Bulatovic getting to shoot his free throws with no one in the lane, followed by Matt Helwig taking technical free throws for the Cardinals. Then with the Cardinals up 18 following a pretty Ethan Helwig layup, he ran into Bulatovic coming back down, Bulatovic pushed him, and I feel like Helwig embellished it a little bit, but he got away with it, drawing a technical foul on Bulatovic and two more Matt Helwig free throws.

All of this occurred with former Carthage head coach and current assistant Bosko Djurikovic watching from well behind us. We didn't even know he was there until we heard his familiar bellowing from behind us. It was good to see him back at a CCIW basketball game though.

The Cardinals will have a few days to get ready to get back to work with a tough one on the docket as they head north to go take on UW-Oshkosh for the first time since... well, you remember.

Game Notes: (WBK) Carthage College @ North Central College (12/4/21)

Final Score
NCC 50, Carthage 40

Game Summary
This one was never really in doubt as the Cardinals (4-4, 1-0) jumped out to an 8-0 lead and never looked back. The Firebirds (4-3, 1-1) couldn't really claw back as North Central pushed the lead to double digits by late in the opening frame and led 16-8 after the first ten minutes. The Cardinals got it right back to double digits in the second, and other than a brief moment of Carthage cutting it to nine, it stayed there, with back to back threes late making it 31-16 going into the break. North Central led by as many as 18, and did get cold in the fourth again, but the lead was sufficient, and the Firebirds would get no closer than eight in the closing stages.

Key Players

• Mitrese Smith (NCC): 7-12 FG, 1-1 FT; 15 pts, 5 reb (2 off), 1 blk. It's great to have a threat in the paint, and Mitrese has looked pretty good so far this season. Granted, this is just the second home game of the year, so I haven't seen much, but this was a good showing. She's also picked up a good elbow jumper as well, which is a nice weapon to have in the arsenal.
• Elle Sutter (NCC): 3-7 FG (2-5 3PT), 1-2 FT; 9 pts, 11 reb (2 off), 2 ast, 1 blk, 3 stl. Elle Sutter made some good plays in the opener against St. Mary's, and played well enough to work her way into the starting lineup in recent weeks. She's rewarded the faith placed in her with another good performance in this one on both ends, wreaking some havoc defensively while showing some scoring prowess. And she's only a sophomore.
• Lauren Knight (CAR): 5-9 FG (3-3 3PT), 2-2 FT; 15 pts, 6 reb. Knight went down in the first half with what looked like a leg injury, and couldn't seem to put any weight on it. But she came back in in the second half, and was hitting some long threes to try and get the Firebirds back into it. The Cardinals did a good job after she hit a couple though to try and make her work harder for those shots, and ultimately limited the damage.

Key Stats

• NCC: 14 assists on 18 field goals. It was hard to pick one thing, because a lot of the stats were pretty close in this one, but this jumped out at me when I went to look at it. That level of assists to field goals is really good, and even though the offense went cold in the fourth, the defense stayed strong and held on to get a win against a good Carthage team.
• CAR: 12-53 FG (22.6%). This was the big thing for me. NCC played outstanding defense in this one, including holding the Firebirds to 4-22 shooting from beyond the arc. Getting six steals and blocking three shots, including one or two impressive plays, was awesome too.

CCIW Scoreboard Watch

• @ MIL 73 (5-3, 1-0), AUG 62 (5-3, 0-1)
• WHE 75 (8-1, 1-1), @ ELM 57 (1-7, 0-1)
• @ IWU 75 (3-4, 1-0), CRL 62 (5-1, 0-1)
• @ NPU 73 (6-1, 0-0), Chicago 64

Final Thoughts

It was good to get back at it after this team was away from home for so long. I wasn't sure what to expect tonight, considering this Carthage team had just won against Wheaton on Wednesday, and Tim Bernero's squads have always been tough to play. But the Cardinals got out to that great start, literally never trailed, and bounced back in a big way after getting trounced at Chicago on Wednesday. It gets the team to .500 on the year, but also gets a big first conference win, something that took several tries in the shortened campaign last winter. The Cardinals are on the bye in conference on Wednesday, but welcome in UW-Stevens Point for a 6pm contest that night.

2021 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Auto Bid Games and At Large Picture

This is a more recent feature as part of the Death to the BCS Playoff series. Especially since I haven't been doing mock brackets this year, this means this post becomes all the more important.

Championship Weekend is all but upon us. That means ten games to determine ten conference champions, all of whom will get an automatic bid into the Death to the BCS Playoffs. For some, their playoff bid may be a formality, others may need to win that game to ensure they're already in. For still others, this is a game merely for seeding purposes. So many motivations all in play here.

There is one additional game being played this weekend: the makeup of Cal-USC that was postponed due to COVID a few weeks ago. Neither team is in the running for a playoff spot, but that game will have some ancillary effects on playoff contenders (possible additional playoff points).

I'll go into the full playoff criteria when I reveal the playoff field, but to give a general idea of what's going to happen with at large selection, I'm borrowing a process from Division III of the NCAA. They split the country into geographic regions, rank teams in each region, then for at large (what D-III calls "Pool C"), they take the top ranked team from each region that didn't earn an automatic bid and put them "at the table" for selection. They'll pick the best team based on criteria from that group, then the next team up from that region comes to the table. We'll do this for the Death to the BCS Playoffs, except by conference instead of region.

So with that in mind, let's look at the conference title games and what each conference's at large chances are.

2021 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 13

The coalition returns to the column as we move into the final third of the 2021 NFL season!

Just six weeks remain, and most of the byes have been taken at this point, so pretty soon we'll be back to the full 16 game slates. Those will be big, as the gap continues to narrow.

Just two weeks ago, Adam had a double digit lead among the group. After I took four of five in last week's podcast episode (and the same margin from Joe while the two of them split their six disputed games), Adam's margin is down to just three games as his success with hero picks has started to come back down to earth. He said when he sent me his picks for this week that it seemed like he was trying to be overly contrarian and is planning to move more to the mean this time around. You can view how we've picked in relation to each other here.

This week, Adam and I disagree on six games out of 14, so for the first time in a few weeks the lead is up for grabs. Let's get to it!