Stomp The Lunatic

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  • Oregon advances to the Elite 8

    Jordan Bell had two big offensive rebounds – one that he followed up with a big basket to make it a one point lead, and one to force Michigan to foul to stop the clock.  Tyler Dorsey had just hit a big shot the last possession to give the Ducks a one point lead with a minute to play, and unlike other times in the game, Michigan didn’t come back with an answer.

    But the Ducks missed the free throw giving the Wolverines one last chance.   And they got the ball in the hands of their senior leader, Derrick Walton, Jr.   He made a nice step back to get off a shot before the buzzer and I thought to myself – this has to go in, right.

    The Wolverines story the last few weeks have been like a fairy tale, with lots of happy endings. But many times in March as we see with these great underdog stories, the clock eventually strikes midnight on Cinderella.

    Walton’s jumper fell short, and the Oregon players celebrated as the buzzer sounded.  The Ducks will be playing in the Midwest Regional final.   Congratulations to Oregon for being the first team to the Elite 8, and thank you to the Michigan Wolverines for giving all of us such a wonderful and uplifting story for the last two weeks – we are all winners for getting to watch their magical run in March.

  • Sweet 16 has begun 

    And as you would expect with games at this level, they are both close (both are one point games as I type this).

    But to add some humor, Katie had to pick her second chance picks – she puts up with this time of year but she really would rather do something else.  So, we decided a fun way to do the picks – by random chance.

    Katie grabbed a die from our Yahtzee game, and picked the favorite when she rolled a 1,2 or 3 and the upset when she rolled the higher numbers.   

    I could also see it totally happening, she took the dice all the way to the championship game – Arizona beating Florida and UNC beating Purdue.  Then, she rolled the die and it was a 5 – Arizona wins the championship.   And she said, I don’t want to pick against North Carolina – that’s grandpa’s school (I thought it was funny the random dice picked UNC and Purdue in the first place).

    So, I said – well lets do 2 out of 3 for the championship – she rolled a 6.  And she looked at me with a frown.  I said, “Do you just want to pick UNC – that is OK – you can do what you want!”.    Katie nodded and thus, picks UNC to beat Arizona for the championship.   Because that is how we roll at the Lunatic’s house.

  • Good luck to everyone

    The games have started!!!!!  So let our game begin as well!!!!!    Hopefully, we will have lots of exciting games for the next 3 weeks!!!!

    I will give more updates when I get home from work – maybe late since the Purdue game is one of the 7 pm games.   But at this point, the entries are locked, we already have Notre Dame and Princeton in a close game at halftime, and lots of fun ready to be had.

    Good luck to everyone in stomping the Lunatic!!!

  • Let the Madness Begin

    Congratulations to Yale and Austin Peay – our first two teams to get their invitation to the dance.

    Austin Peay did it in classic Cinderella style.  As the number 8 seed in the Ohio Valley (and a protected bracket set up to try to avoid this scenario), the Governors won 4 games in 4 days – beating the 5 seed, 4 seed, 1 seed and 2 seed to claim the championship.  After an exciting overtime victory over Belmont, where the top seed missed a last second three-pointer in overtime and made the rebound and lay-up after the buzzer had gone off, the underdogs hit a school record 16 three-pointers to beat Tennessee-Martin for the championship.

    Yale’s path is the traditional way in the Ivy League.   The Bulldogs did what they did all season in conference.  They went on the road to Columbia and beat the Lions by 16 points on the way to a 13-1 regular season championship.  Yale will be going to NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1962, which makes this bid extra special.  Thanks to the Ivy League being the only conference that rewards their regular season championship with the bid, the Bulldogs will be dancing for the first time in 54 years!

    Well, make that maybe the only conference that rewards their regular season champion….  Madness is happening in the Atlantic Sun tournament – thanks to the 7th seeded Stetson Hatters.  Stetson is ineligible this season for the NCAA Tournament due to an audit ruling them under the Academic Progress Rate guidelines based on their 2012 team.  There is a decent explanation of the full story on the CBS Sports site (as probably other sites – since this has gotten a little bit of outrage).   That is because in the other semi-final, Florida Gulf Coast went onto the home court of the A-Sun’s regular season champ, North Florida, and beat the Ospreys by 33 points.

    Despite the oddity of the circumstances, I actually don’t buy into the outrage that it should go to FGCU if they get upset on Sunday.   Basically, based on the CBS story, the Atlantic Sun didn’t feel it was fair to punish the Stetson players who were not the reason the school was ruled ineligible, but in doing so, they have punished other teams.  Stetson has been on a tear in the tournament, beating #2 seed NJIT by 15 and #6 seed Lipscomb by 21.   Is it fair that NJIT and Lipscomb had their season ended by a team that can’t play in the post-season – why should the outrage only happen if FGCU loses the championship?   By putting Stetson in the tournament, the conference essentially decided that it was fair.   And once they made that decision (which I would not have done), I think they have made the fairest decision possible.  If Stetson blows out FGCU, should NJIT get the bid if they played Stetson the closest, or should it go to FGCU simply because they got the farthest in a 3 day tournament.  Why answer that question when you can simply give the bid to the team who won the most games in the conference all season?

    Sadly, it is a bad situation with lots of wrongs.  The NCAA is to blame by not making a timely decision.  Stetson was punished in 2015 after an audit on their 2012 team.   It is ridiculous that they can’t make those decisions faster – this leaves students without options but playing on a team that can’t compete for the ultimate goal of a championship.  But if we are going to rule a team an ineligible for post-season, the Atlantic Sun shouldn’t be allowing them to play in the post-season.  While it is hard to accept, the NCAA can’t punish the players who already left.  They punish the institutions that don’t follow the rules, and the conferences should enforce those punishments.  But everyone who is complaining now are complaining too late about the wrong thing.  They are upset because a team could get into the dance after losing by 33 points the night before in the tournament.  The outrage shouldn’t be about FGCU being cheated if they lose after beating North Florida – no one complained for NJIT and Lipscomb, and so Florida Gulf Coast shouldn’t get any sympathy either (unless of course, you were complaining before the tournament started).  The honest answer is conference officials figured there was no harm in letting a 4-10 team play in their tournament since they wouldn’t go far and it would let the students still get to play – and now, that decision is backfiring (unless you go with the opinion of people are talking about the Atlantic Sun tournament, and so it was brilliant).

    So, on Sunday, Florida Gulf Coast will be playing in the Atlantic Sun tournament for a chance to dance.  And Stetson will be playing for pride to claim a title no one thought they would be competing for.   And if the Hatters cut down the nets after the victory, it will be North Florida who will get a rare second chance to put on their dance shoes.

    Lets not forget the Big South and Missouri Valley – who will also have their conference tournament championships decided on Sunday.   And both of them watched their regular season champions, High Point and Wichita State, lose today in the semis.  We have a team who hasn’t been to the dance in over 50 years and a team who needed all 4 conference tournament victories just to get above .500 in winning percentage.  The bubble has gotten tighter thanks to Wichita State losing in their conference tournament, and we might see a team tomorrow win their conference’s bid by watching at home on television.  And we still have an entire of week to add to this craziness before the dance even begins.  The Lunatic is so thrilled – it must be March!!!!   Let the Madness BEGIN!!!!!

  • Congratulations to the 2015 Stomp the Lunatic Champion!!!!!

    Congratulations to our 2015 Stomp the Lunatic Champion – Troy Cole.  Troy was able to correctly forecast that Duke would beat Wisconsin in the championship, which led him to a 30 point victory!

    Congratulations also go out to our Upset Pool Champion – Will Shipley, who ran away with a 28 point victory thanks to great picks like Michigan State to the Final Four, and UCLA and Wichita State to the Sweet 16.

    Finally, we had a three-way tie for the Second Chance Pool.  Troy Cole won a three way at 920 points with Brian Lawson and Jim Sell.   Troy’s tie-breaker of 136 was 4 points better than Brian and 6 points better than Jim to take the title.

    Troy has one more claim to fame this year.   In a strange, unprecedented event, Troy Cole is the only person this year to successfully Stomp the Lunatic.   We are all thankful to Troy – since I am pretty sure that the Lunatic actually winning the pool might be one of the signs of the apocalypse.

    Without further ado – here are the final winners!!!!!

    STANDARD POOL

    1) Troy Cole – 1320

    2) CRAZED LUNATIC – 1290

    3) Michael Swinson (FUN) – 1260

    4) Rohit Kapoor – 1250

    5th tie) Cooper Ams and Michael Yuen (FUN) – 1240

    7th) Kyle Kelly – 1210

    8th) Joey Ams – 1190

    9th) Ann Hawkins – 1180

    10th) Ryan Zotti – 1160

    11th) Nathan Standley – 1150

    12th tie) Pam Ciejek and Thomas Cook – 1140

    LAST) Tracy Vail-Rhodes – 430

    UPSET POOL

    1) Will Shipley – 297

    2) Ann Hawkins – 271

    3) Joey Ams – 263

    4) Red Shepley – 262

    5 tie) Chris Hamson (FUN) and CRAZED LUNATIC – 261

    SECOND CHANCE POOL

    1 tie) Troy Cole, Brian Lawton and Jim Sell – 920

     

    Congratulations again to Troy, Will, Brian and Jim for winning (or getting a share) of one of our pools!!!!!    And of course, congratulations again to the Duke Blue Devils – our 2015 NCAA Champions.

    Thanks again to everyone for making this such a fun tournament!!!!!  Hope that you enjoyed the games, the ranting, and the brackets!!!!    Hopefully, everyone will come back next March, when our crazy resident basketball expert will come out again to give you all a chance to STOMP THE LUNATIC!!!!

  • No more double digit seeds

    Cinderella’s clock struck midnight for our two highest remaining seeds. Both UCLA and North Carolina State played valiantly, but in the end Gonzaga had two much strength in the middle and Louisville also found the abiliity to slowly pull away.

    Just the evil tired night caps remaining – at least the games have been close.

  • Arizona survives and Kentucky destroys

    I am angry with the Kentucky Wildcats and/or the NCAA schedule makers.

    That is because the Wildcats complete annihilation of West Virginia combined with it being 11:30 at night managed to lull me to sleep before the second half of the close game between Arizona and Xavier got started again.

    I woke up an hour and a half later to find that Xavier stuck with Arizona and had a 4 point lead with 9 minuted to play, before Arizona clamped down on defense and held the Musketeers to only one more basket from the field to fight to a 68-60 victory.

    If we are going to have games on at midnight, lets at least keep them interesting – good job by Arizona and Xavier, bad job by Kentucky. I would include West Virginia in that but in my sleep deprived state, I can’t be sure that the Mountaineers showed up for the game.

    So both Wildcats advance to the Elite 8.

    Congrats to Charlie – who by continuing to favor chalk, got all 4 games on Thursday right and now has the outright lead. This has created the difficult parenting moment of trying to explain to an 8 year old that while he is doing great, he has not won anything yet. Considering that Tony Bisese, Will Sharpley and Dominic Shaw are just 10 points behind, and 31 others just one Sweet 16 win from tying him, the adults here realize how perilous that lead is.

    Donna Woodburn’s picks continue to lead the upset pool with a 16 point lead over Will Sharpley.

    And there are 54 entries in the Second Chance pool that went 4 for 4 – so we won’t even go there.

    The East and South Elite 8 spots are up for grabs tonight – lots of basketball still to be played

  • Notre Dame and Wisconsin advance

    We have our first two teams in the Elite 8!!!!! First, Notre Dame used a large run to start the game and one in the middle of the second half to run away from Wichita State.

    Then, Wisconsin got pushed to the limit by the sharp shooting from UNC – as the Tar Heels had a 7 point lead in the second half. But the Badgers kept chipping away – and then used an 11-3 run to take a 5 point lead into the last 5 minutes. And then the #1 seed in the West withstood Marcus Paige’s three pointers by hitting their last 9 free throws to ice the game.

    Congratulations to the Irish and Badgers for getting one step closer to the Final 4 in Indianapolis

  • No more perfect brackets

    After Butler held off Texas and UCLA stole the game from SMU with a goaltending call on a three point shot with 10 seconds left, not even Laura and Donna could stay perfect with their picks

    That adds the Bruins to the list of Cinderella double digit teams moving on. How awesome that so many of the games are going down to the wire. We have upsets, heroic shots, controversial calls – and we are only 6 games into the tournament!!!

  • Cinderella has another name

    It is what makes the tournament special – the stars that are made.

    Down 2 points with just 11 seconds, Georgia State rebounded a missed free throw and RJ Hunter puts a dagger into the Big 12 from really deep to give Georgia State an improbable 1 point victory.

    Congrats to Laura Carini and Donna Woodburn for having the foresight and the courage to pick both upsets!!!