Skechers World Champions Cup is great golf happening this week
The Skechers World Champions Cup is going on this week and it is some seriously awesome golf.
If you love things like the Ryder Cup, President’s Cup, or Solheim Cup then this is right up your alley. The Skechers World Champions Cup is a bit different those in that it pits three teams against one another (United States, Europe, and an International group), but the level of intensity and competition is the same.
Recently the Tournament Chairman for the event, the great Peter Jacobsen, joined us to talk about the event as the opening round was underway on Friday. You can watch my entire conversation with him here.
This is an event that the world of golf has been looking forward to for some time now. Back in October we spoke with the United States captain in Jim Furyk and personally speaking I’ll be rooting him and our fellow Americans on. As Peter put it though, this is an event that features a lot of competitive drive from everyone involved, but it is great to see these players out there in general, especially at this part of the calendar/year.
Peter mentioned in our chat that part of the benefit of this event is the awareness that it raises for the Champions Tour at large. The Tour is one of great value and skill and that people have an opportunity to see that through this Cup is very cool indeed.
On the subject of seeing… you can watch the second round all day Friday and the final one on Sunday. Coverage is on ESPN+, ESPN, and ABC (final round afternoon session only) and you will surely enjoy it all.
Conor McGregor's sexual-assault lawsuit stemming from 2023 NBA Finals dismissed in Florida
Conor McGregor had a sexual assault lawsuit dropped in Florida. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
JIM WATSON via Getty Images
Content warning: This story contains depictions of alleged sexual assault.
A sexual-assault lawsuit filed against MMA fighter Conor McGregor stemming from an alleged incident at the 2023 NBA Finals was dismissed in Florida on Wednesday, according to The Athletic.
The plaintiff, who filed the lawsuit against McGregor, filed to have the lawsuit dismissed. That was granted Wednesday, as a judge in Florida dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe, cannot re-file the case.
The lawsuit stemmed from an alleged incident at the 2023 NBA Finals, where the plaintiff claimed she was sexually assaulted by McGregor during Game 4 of the Finals between the Miami Heat and the Denver Nuggets.
The woman claimed she was “violently” assaulted by McGregor in a men’s bathroom after the game. The woman accused McGregor of forcibly kissing her and making her perform oral sex against her will. McGregor was also accused of trying to sodomize the woman.
Days after those allegations became public, video emerged appearing to show McGregor leading his accuser into the bathroom at the Heat’s stadium.
McGregor and his reps called the accusations “false” at the time.
McGregor was in attendance at Game 4 of the NBA Finals, which were held at Kaseya Center in Miami. During the game, McGregor was involved in a promotional stunt in which he punched the Heat’s mascot. The stunt took a turn after the person in the mascot costume was taken to the emergency room after taking two punches to the head.
The plaintiff filed a police report after the alleged incident. After an investigation, McGregor did not face criminal charges.
McGregor, 37, has faced multiple sexual-assault allegations over his career. Last year, McGregor lost a sexual assault civil case in Ireland, and had to pay $259,149.36 to a woman after a jury determined McGregor sexually assaulted the woman in a Dublin hotel in 2018.
Elden Campbell, the all-time leading scorer at Clemson who played for the Lakers in the 1990s and won an NBA title with the Pistons, has died at the age of 57.
The High Score 100: The biggest rankings risers and fallers as we navigate Week 7 in fantasy basketball
The High Score 100 — the top-100 players in Yahoo’s newest fantasy basketball format — is a running reflection of year-to-date performance and trending production. Each weekly update captures who’s actually delivering value and who’s fading.
Here’s a breakdown of the biggest risers and fallers through the sixth week of fantasy basketball — with the complete High Score 100 at the bottom of the article. I’ll be updating my rankings every Tuesday throughout the fantasy basketball season.
Before jumping into the risers, it’s worth noting the ripple effect of stars returning this week. Tyler Herro (36) and Jalen Williams (53) made their season debuts in Week 6, pushing rotational players down the list as usage and minutes normalized. As more stars come back from injury, expect more volatility in the middle tiers of the rankings.
The Grizzlies’ big man is becoming such a dominant force in the paint. I had to move him up in the ranks because of his outstanding play to close out Week 6 in a win over Sacramento, racking up 32 points, 17 rebounds and 5 blocks on 16-of-20 shooting. A 64-point fantasy outing was shocking. Still, at this pace, he’s tracking to be a 37-40+ fantasy point asset in High Score. Edey’s averaging 13 points, 11 rebounds and 2 blocks per game since returning from injury — keep him locked into your lineups.
Josh Hart – G/FC, New York Knicks: 87th overall (⬆️ 16)
Hart’s rotation minutes have ticked up as New York shuffles through injuries, and he’s responded with the multi-category contributions we’ve come to love and expect. Over the past four games, Hart is averaging 17 points, 11.8 rebounds, 7 assists and 3.3 stocks per game, equating to 52.5 fantasy points in High Score. A promotion was necessary after that level of production in Week 6. We can expect that type of stability as long as OG Anunoby remains out and Mitchell Robinson doesn’t play in back-to-backs.
Cooper Flagg – G/FC, Dallas Mavericks: 58th overall (⬆️ 15)
Flagg’s been showing signs of growth offensively over the past month. The rookie phenom posted consecutive weeks of registering at least 50 fantasy points in High Score. Also, he became the youngest player in NBA history to drop 35 in a game in a win over the Clippers in Week 6. Flagg’s versatility is beginning to shine through on both ends, showing the kind of upside fantasy managers expected when drafting him as a top-50 player. The usage spike and month-over-month improvement as a scorer will only send him further up the ranks.
High Score fallers
Ausar Thompson – FC, Detroit Pistons: 118th overall (⬇️ 28)
Thompson’s name appears on the fallers’ list in consecutive weeks because his production continues to trend downward. Even though he’s returned to the starting lineup, he hasn’t eclipsed 30 fantasy points since Nov. 9. In his last seven outings, his highest score is 27 and for the season, Thompson is averaging 30.2 fantasy points per game. That’s on the cusp of not being worth holding on your fantasy roster in a default High Score league. He’s playing less than 30 minutes per game this season, so a boost in minutes would certainly improve his production.
Jarrett Allen – FC, Cleveland Cavaliers 100th overall (⬇️ 20)
Like Thompson, Allen is back again and loosely holding down the final spot in the High Score 100. A finger injury has been affecting his performance lately, but we can’t ignore the stats. He hasn’t gone over 30 fantasy points in over two weeks, causing his average to dip to 31 fantasy points per game. He’s actually ranked 107, but I’m giving some grace for his finger ailment.
I expect McDaniels will have a brief stint on the fallers list after a disappointing Week 6, where he scored 26 fantasy points. With Jalen Williams and Tyler Herro returning, someone had to drop off, and McDaniels’ play of late hasn’t been enough to warrant keeping in the top 100. After a hot start to the season, scoring 18 PPG, which has normalized to 14 PPG over the past 14 games, with improved efficiency that unfortunately won’t factor into High Score.
Complete High Score 100 rankings
The High Score 100 is a running reflection of year-to-date performance and trending production.
Stay tuned for the next look at the High Score 100!
What analytics predict about NFL’s contenders and pretenders
Nothing in the NFL makes sense this season. Down is up, up is down, the Browns are consistently down, while the Chiefs might be up, even though they’re down right now. If you’ve been trying to make sense of 2025 you’re not alone, because week-to-week it’s impossible to know what is going to happen in the league. That whole mess has snowballed into the spot we’re in now, where just a few weeks removed from the playoffs nobody has any idea which teams are good or not.
At times like this we have two options: We can either throw our hands up and say “none of this makes sense,” or we can look to the cold, steely embrace of analytics to give us some idea about who is actually good or not.
Over at RBDSM we have a fresh tier NFL list, which is a two axis graph that plots offensive EPA/play, and defensive EPA/play allowed to map how all 32 teams stack up. If you’re not familiar with EPA, it stands for “Expected Points Added,” an essentially boils down every single play in a game to a numerical value to see how well the play was executed in terms of adding points on offense, or preventing them on defense. It’s the only advanced metric we have which factors in success rate, penalties, turnovers, everything — all into one stat.
This is interesting to see, because it naturally factors in quality. An explosive play against the horrendous Bengals defense won’t be worth as much as one against the juggernaut Browns defense. Similarly, stopping Matthew Stafford and the Rams is more significant than intercepting a pass thrown by J.J. McCarthy. It’s for this reason that raw wins and losses often don’t match up with EPA rankings due to strength of schedule. Football is always unpredictable (ask the Panthers), but we can use EPA metrics as a predictor for how teams should fair when we hit the playoffs.
Tiering is read diagonally from top right, to bottom left. The perfect team would dominate in both offensive EPA and defense EPA allowed — but that’s rare. So the sliced tiers can account for true dominance in one area, while being sub-par in another. It’s for this reason the Cowboys can still be a high-tier team, because they’re one of the best offensive teams in football, and one of the worst defensively.
First a few general observations before we dive into separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to contenders and pretenders.
No. 1: There is no “elite” team this year
The Rams are about as close as you’ll get to a top tier team, but even so they sit at the cusp of the first and second tier. This isn’t that surprising in the scheme of things. It’s rare to truly have an ideal team, and since EPA tiering began in 2016 there’s only been one true “Tier 1” team that has dominated both offensively and defensively in the regular season, and that’s the 2019 Baltimore Ravens, who boasted the No. 2 offense in the NFL, the No. 4 defense, and dramatically crashed out in the playoffs to the Titans in the shocker.
No. 2: The Titans are legendarily bad
No need to rub salt in the wound, but my God that team sucks.
No. 3: The Chiefs are the most dangerous team outside the bubble
A defining factor of the 2024 Chiefs that made the Super Bowl was the number of one score games they managed to win. This year the coin has flipped to the other side, and they’re 2-6 in one score games this season. This incredibly small margin of error means that Kansas City is still very dangerous, and are easily the scariest potential playoff team — if they can get in.
Contenders vs. Pretenders
In order to do this we’re going to take a team’s ranking in the composite EPA and match it up with their current standing in their conference W/L record. If these match up in a high tier, the team is a bonafide contender. If there is a significant delta between division standing and composite EPA then we have a strong possibility the team is a pretender. A higher number indicates the team’s record is weaker than their EPA making them better than their record shows, while a negative shows the inverse, making a team’s record look much better than they’ve actually been.
The Patriots really are as good as their record shows, while the Colts are still very good — even if they’ve cooled off a little in recent weeks. Meanwhile we see the absurd weakness of the AFC South and AFC North shine through with the Jaguars and Ravens both being very mediocre teams (15th and 19th in the NFL respectively), but have very high seeding due to their divisions.
We know how good the NFC West has been this year. Football’s most brutal division by a mile, it’s entirely possible we see three teams get to the playoffs out of the west — all of whom could win a playoff game or more. Where this gets interesting is the pretender side. The majority of the NFC has its current seeding match its potential, with two outliers: The Buccaneers, who are below average in both offense and defense this year. Also the Bears. As much as Chicago fans may bristle, their Charmin soft schedule has this team looking much, much better in standings that they do as an analytic team.
Kon Knueppel, Cooper Flagg Named NBA’s Rookies Of The Month
Kon Knueppel and Cooper Flagg have been named the NBA’s Rookies of the Month for October and November. This marks the first time both winners played for the same college.
Knueppel averaged 18.4 points and 5.7 rebounds while shooting 41.3 percent on three-pointers.
Flagg averaged 16.7 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists.
If you are reading this story, you are probably back at work after a long holiday weekend in the United States, putting off that latest assignment for one more hour as you try and check items off your shopping list.
Allow us to help in that effort.
We get it: Sports gifts can be expensive. That makes finding the best deals possible a must this holiday season. We’ve pulled together some of the gifts we are getting for sports fans in our lives — or gifts we are hoping Santa brings us — for you on Cyber Monday.
And for the record, this is not part of a sponsorship package but rather the gifts those of us who live, eat, and breathe sports every day think you should know about.
Cyber Monday gifts for NFL fans
Like most leagues, the NFL is holding a Cyber Monday sale, where fans can receive up to 60% off merchandise.
Celtics fan Pete Rogers started designing new jerseys for the team following each win during the 2022-2023 NBA season. This year he’s added the Minnesota Timberwolves to his collection, which you can find at Banner18.
While many designs are currently sold out, there are still some available as part of their Holiday Drop.
Cyber Monday gifts for WNBA fans
WNBA t-shirts are absolutely fantastic. Everything is on sale for Cyber Monday, but not everyone likes a jersey. Instead there’s a wide array of both player shirt jerseys, as well as designs that are individualized for specific players — like this awesome Paige Bueckers No. 1 pick shirt that evokes the early 90s in style.
Cyber Monday gifts for NHL fans
Mitchell & Ness is having a Cyber Monday sale, and while they have gifts for fans of any sport, some of their NHL stuff is fantastic.
However, if you are looking to go above and beyond, MLB Auctions is having a separate Cyber Monday event, as they are auctioning off special “Black Friday Baseball Bundles.” If you ever wanted a chance to bid on four game-used baseballs signed by Colton Cowser, for example, this is your lucky day.
If you are looking for gifts for the baseball player in your life, Dick’s has a big Cyber Monday event happening that includes sales on some of the best bats you can find. For example, this Marucci CATX bat is now $99.99, down from $199.99. Just make sure you get the right size, and also make sure any bat you buy can be used in the league the recipient plays in. Depending on the age and skill level, some leagues only allow USA bats, others allow USSSA bats, while older players are required to use BBCOR bats.
Cyber Monday gifts for F1 fans
If you’ve made it to this part then you probably know … F1 merchandise is really, really expensive.
Which makes Cyber Monday the perfect time to check off gift ideas for the F1 fan in your life.
The official F1 store is having a Cyber Monday sale with up to 70% off items. That includes team wear, such as the official Red Bull 2025 team shirt.
Specific teams are offering Cyber Monday deals. McLaren is offering fans an extra 15% off selected items (although that might not ease fans’ pain after the team bottled the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday) and Haas has extended their Black Friday deals into this week, where fans of Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman can get up to 75% off selected merchandise.
Teams that have collaborations with specific brands are also having sales. For example, fans can receive deep discounts on the adidas x Mercedes line here.
The Ferrari fan in you life probably just wants the team to fix the car, however.
Cyber Monday gifts for the sports bettor in your life
Let’s face it: Sports cards are basically gambling. You buy a pack and hope to crack something massive. Topps is having a sale on numerous sets across various sports, all of which have a chance to get a unique collectible. Perfect for the person who wants a little nostalgia in their life, or a chance at landing a big windfall.
