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.