OK – they are not as glamorous as the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles.   But #13 La Salle has made their way to the Sweet 16 by their 2 point victory over Ole Miss.  With time winding down, Tyrone Garland makes a tremendous drive to the basket and hit the layup to give the Explorers the win.

Although I will say that it was rather strange that Ole Miss didn’t call a time-out.  They had one remaining – why not set up a last play for the 2.5 seconds.  It probably wouldn’t have mattered since they had to travel the entire court, but the Rebels looked confused on what to do – and they ended up with a horrible last ditch effort to win the game.

Still, if it wasn’t for the amazing story about the Eagles – the #13 seed Explorers would be the Cinderella story.  By the way, it is an interesting side note that the Explorers have now made it 2 of 3 years that a team from the first four games made it to the Sweet 16.  All of us remember the other team that did that continued all the way to the Final Four – Richmond’s own VCU Rams.

Congratulations to the La Salle Explorers!!!!!!

We now officially have our Cinderella – because after knocking off #2 Georgetown, the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles decided that they were not done.  And after being down by 1 point at half-time to San Diego State, the Eagles came out and blitzed the #7 Aztecs – including some more fun dunks at the end of the game when it was clear things were out of reach.

You might wonder how historic this is – Florida Gulf Coast, in their first ever NCAA Tournament, has become the first 15 seed in the entire history of the tournament to ever make it to the Sweet 16.

You might not know who Sherwood Brown, Bernard Thompson, Brett Comer, Chase Fieler, and Eric McKnight are now.  But I guarantee you that many will be learning the names of the Florida Gulf Coast starters over the next few days.  I am sure that one important person has taken notice – Billy Donovan, the head coach of #3 seed Florida.  The Gators will be the next team hoping that they do not become a part of the Eagles run at history.

But take it from the Miami FL Hurricanes (who lost to the Eagles in November), the Georgetown Hoyas, and now the San Diego State Aztecs.   These Eagles really can soar with the best of them.

Over 46% have the Hoosiers winning the South (once again, including the Lunatic).  And so, as Temple maintained its small lead throughout the majority of the second half, many of us were starting to prepare to rip up our brackets.

Fortunately, Indiana held in their – eventually tied the game when Cody Zeller drove to the basket and was fouled – hitting his two FTs.  Then, off a missed three pointer Khalif Wyatt, Victor Oladipo was fouled in transition and hit a FT.   After another defensive stand by the Hoosiers, IU got the ball inside to Zeller, and with time winding down on the shot clock, he passed to a wide-open Oladipo at the top of the key – who calmly nailed the three-pointer to give the Hoosiers a commanding 4 point lead with 15 seconds to play.

The un-heralded part of this is the great defense that Indiana played at the end of the game.  The only points that Temple got in the final 4 minutes was two FTs from their star player.  They would never have been able to make the comeback they did without stopping Temple from scoring so often.

For Big 10 fans everywhere, the most important phrase to remember is – SURVIVE AND ADVANCE!!!!!!   Kudos go out to both Iowa State and Temple – they played amazingly great games and both almost pulled off classic upsets.  But in the end, it is the Big 10’s conference tournament champion and regular season champion who survived to play in the Sweet 16.

Hope the rest of the games continue on like this – it has been a very exciting day of basketball so far.

What an amazing game.  Ohio State looks like they have the game well under control with a 12 point lead and 8 minutes left.  Then, Iowa State goes on a 13-0 run over the next 5 minutes to take the lead.  The teams start to battle back and forth until the stage was set.

The game is tied at 75 with 29 seconds.  Ohio State lobs the ball in to Aaron Craft.  Up to this point, Craft had an un-characteristic stretch.  Despite being almost an 80% FT shooter, the Ohio State guard had recently missed the first end of a 1-and-1 twice.  Then, after being fouled on a lay-up, he missed a third FT.  If anyone was going to be the goat for the 12 point lead slipping away, it would have been Craft.

And fate now has this young man sitting with the ball around half court – holding the ball for one last shot to win the game.  As he starts to get ready to drive, he waives a teammate away to create space.  He has already decided what he is going to do.  With 2 seconds left, he fakes a drive to cause the defender to back-pedal, and then, pulls up for a three-pointer.  There is a saying that as a shooter, you have to have a short-term memory – the only memory you have is of the next shot going in.  Aaron Craft’s memory was perfect as that three-pointer went in before the buzzer and led the Buckeyes to the Sweet 16.

Thanks to Craft’s three-point shot, the Buckeyes help avoid having this year’s West region be the first one in history that did not have any of the 4 protected seeds make the Sweet 16.  And about 45% of our pool (myself included) breathed a sigh of relief that their team is still alive.  Survive and advance!

Congratulations to the Ohio State Buckeyes!!!

Every year, there seems to be one region that just goes crazy with upsets.  This year, that region appears to be the West – as we have already lost #1 Gonzaga, #3 New Mexico, #4 Kansas State, #5 Wisconsin, #7 Notre Dame, and #8 Pitt.

If I was an Ohio State fan, I would be extremely conflicted right now.

On one hand, I have to be excited that the road to the Final Four has become wide open.  At this point, if you believe the order of the seeds, the toughest opponent left in the way is #6 Arizona.  Nothing against the Wildcats, but they don’t invoke the same type of fear as maybe a Louisville (place your favorite #1 seed), Florida (place your favorite #3 seed) or Syracuse (place your favorite #4 seed) would.

On the other hand, I have now become the prohibitive favorite in a region that has seen almost all of the favorites go down unexpectedly.  The target is now squarely on the Buckeyes’ back.  It will be interesting to see how they deal with that pressure (to be fair, they handled it pretty well in the Big 10 tournament).

At this point, there are already over 53% of us who can’t see their West winner be correct – that number will go to 98% if the Buckeyes lose.   All of a sudden, the 5 people who picked Arizona, 2 people who picked Iowa State, and 1 person who picked Ole Miss might be feeling a lot better about their chances in the West.

We currently have a 4 way tie for the lead in the Standard Pool.  Our first round leader, Bill Yost, is joined by Steve Glass, Tonya Cole, and Andrew Sadow with 370 points.  Joey Ams, Kyle Kelly and Adam Searles are just 10 points behind.  And don’t look now, but the Crazed Lunatic is a part of the 12 person group tied for 8th – just 20 points behind.

In the Upset Pool, Rick Flynn leads with 197 points – followed closely by Andrew Sadow (5 points behind) and Rohit Kapoor (6 points behind).

Yes – I am as shocked as all of you that technically, at this moment, only 7 people are Stomping the Lunatic!!!!   My guess is that the Lunatic can not manage to continue this amazing feat.  And there is obviously lots of college basketball still to be played!!!!!  Plenty of time for more of you to put the Lunatic back into his rightful place….

That’s right – our first #1 seed has fallen as Gonzaga gets upset by #9 Wichita State.  Wichita State was lights out from three-point range in the second half – including hitting their last 5 three point shots that sparked a stretch where they went from being down 7 to up 5.

The biggest play I would say was a turnover with about 3 minutes to go.   Ron Baker had just hit two FTs to give Wichita State a one point lead.  Elias Harris grabbed the ball after the second made FT and tossed it to David Stockton so he could in-bound it.  Just one problem.  Harris grabbed the ball out-of-bounds and Stockton was in-bounds.  So, in essense, Harris had already put the ball in play by giving it to Stockton – and then Stockton proceeded to walk the ball out for a turnover.

Ron Baker proceeded to get the ball for Wichita State and hit a 3 pointer to give the Shockers a 4 point lead.  And then the stadium went nuts when after Gonzaga scored, Fred Vanvleet hit another three-pointer to extend the lead to 5.  At this point, the Shockers were able to finish the game off from the FT line and take out the #1 ranked team in the polls going into the tournament.

Congratulations to Wichita State for their amazing upset and earning a trip to the Sweet 16.

 

Nothing against Michigan, Michigan State, Louisville, Arizona, and Oregon.  But watching double digit blowouts is just not that exciting.  Heck – even #12 Oregon winning is a large upset over #4 St. Louis – but the Ducks 17 point victory over the Billikens had been up to this point the closest game of the day.  Not much to write about here.

But Marquette and Butler played a classic tournament game.  The Bulldogs jump out to the early half time lead.  The Golden Eagles come storming back to take the lead.  The game goes back and forth several times.  Then, with 4 seconds left, Marquette has two FTs to do what should seal up the game.  And that is exactly what Davante Gardner did – he hit the FTs and gave Marquette what appeared to be a game-ending 4 point lead.

Then, the madness begun.   Butler baseball passes the ball all the way down the field to Andrew Smith who gets a lay-up with just 1 second coming off the clock to cut the lead to 2.  Marquette inexplicably throws the ball out of bounds.  And now, the Golden Eagles are wondering if they were going to have happen to them what they did to Davidson just two days.  Of course, that threat had to be looming in their mind even more since when these two teams played earlier in the season, Butler hit a wild buzzer beater three point shot to win the game.

Lightning did not strike twice though.  Butler couldn’t get the ball in to their shooters, the ball came to Andrew Smith very far away from the basket, and he put up an awkward three-pointer that did not come close – allowing the Golden Eagles to escape again.  Their two victories add up to only 3 points – but at the end of the day, that is all you need.  Survive and advance.

Regardless, thanks to these two teams to bringing back the excitement to the games.  Don’t want to take anything away from the other 5 winners since they dominated their games and earned a well-deserved trip to the Sweet 16.  But winning by 20 points is not as fun to watch as what the Golden Eagles and Bulldogs just did.

Figure it is time to give out some ratings to the conferences.   That will likely change over the weekend’s games – but figure that it is worth calling out for the first two rounds.

Atlantic 10: A+.    It seemed odd that the A-10 had 5 teams in the tournament.  Heck, the tradition-rich ACC only had 4, so how could the committee select 5 from this mid-major.  All they have done since the games have started is go 6-0, including dominating performances by St. Louis, VCU and Butler.  And then there is La Salle – the team that I thought shouldn’t be in compared to another SEC / ACC team.  All they have done is won the play-in game and upset #4 seed Kansas State.

Atlantic Sun: A+.   Not going to mention the other single bid conferences – but Florida Gulf Coast is the story of the tournament so far.  And it bears to be mentioned that the team they beat in the conference tournament, Mercer – went on to win their first game in the NIT at Tennessee.

Big 10: A.     The top teams (Indiana, Ohio St, Michigan St, and Michigan) all won convincingly.   They lose a little credit because of Wisconsin’s unexpected loss – but then they get some credit back for the fact that both of their 8-10 teams in conference (Illinois and Minnesota) won their first round games.   Going 6-1 is pretty good.

Missouri Valley: A.  Wichita State unexpectedly destroyed Pitt – and Creighton managed to hold off Cincinnati to make the conference 2-0.  Not as impressive as the A-10 – but you still get an A if you go undefeated.

ACC: A-.   Miami and Duke dominated their games.  And UNC jumped all over Villanova early and then held on to win their game.  The only blemish was a 8-9 game loss by NC State.  Pretty good start for the ACC.

SEC: B+.    Florida didn’t show up for the first half and still was able to blow out Northwestern State.  And Ole Miss totally upset Wisconsin getting lots of credit for a 12 seed victory.   But then Missouri got blitzed by Colorado State.   Based on seed, Missouri wasn’t supposed to win the game – but they weren’t supposed to lose by double digits either.   That drops them from the top of the class.

Pac 12: B.   The conference totally got a bad break with seeding.  How Oregon went 22-4 while healthy, losing only neutral court / road games to RPI Top 100 teams, demonstrated they were back to full strength in the Pac 12 tourney, and only got a 12 seed is still one of the most puzzling parts of the selection process.   But they and Cal both knocked off #5 seeds to get to the Round of 32 – and Arizona looked good in their victory.  Not going to take credit away for Colorado losing a close game that they were supposed to lose – but UCLA getting crushed – even while down an important player, pushes them down.

West Coast Conference: B.  St. Mary’s looked great in the first four games – and then almost upset Memphis.  Gonzaga won – but #1 seeds are supposed to win their first games by double digits – not by 6.  They are where they are expected to be in wins – but it is strange that the team that lost is the one that performed better compared to expectations.

Mountain West: C.  New Mexico’s loss to Harvard is what crushes their grade.  You have to win your games when you are a top 3 seed.  Didn’t help that UNLV lost as a #5 seed to a team it beat earlier in the season.  However, San Diego State and Colorado State ran to easy victories.  Wanted to reward the 7 and 8 seeds for their victories – but when a protected seed loses as well as the conference’s second best team, it averages out to a mediocre grade.

Big East: D.  Louisville and Syracuse took care of business as expected – which is the only thing keep this from being an F.  Georgetown lost the biggest upset of the tournament to FGCU.  Marquette as a 3 seed needed last second heroics to make the next round.  Notre Dame and Pitt got blown out of the buildings.  And while Villanova and Cincinnati weren’t supposed to win – they didn’t do anything that would bump up the conferences status.  One of the Big East’s top 3 might still end up doing very well – maybe even winning the entire tournament.  But when you are supposed to have 4 protected seeds and 2 others expected to advance to the next round – and you finish the round with just 3 of 8 teams remaining in the tournament, that is an awful start.

Big 12: D-.  While Oregon never should have been a 12 seed, Oklahoma State as a 5 seed should not have lost by double digits.  Kansas State as a protected seed should definitely not lost to La Salle.  Oklahoma wasn’t supposed to win – but losing by 15 isn’t an inspiring performance.  Then you have Kansas almost allowing Western Kentucky make history as the first ever 16 seed to win – the Jayhawks eventually pulled away for a 7 point victory.  The only thing keeping this from a failing grade is the fact that the Jayhawks are still alive, and Iowa State destroyed Notre Dame.  Actually maybe I should give them more credit for ISU eliminating Notre Dame’s hideous uniforms….

 

As the kids are going for their nap, I finally turned on today’s game.  Hoping VCU comes back – looks like they had a rough first half.   Go Rams!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Once again, this tournament demonstrates that while it might be easy to Stomp the Lunatic – his family will provide more difficult competition.  Elizabeth’s uncle – Bill Yost is one of the co-leaders as he was able to get 27 of 32 games correct.   He is tied with Stacy Dooms, who was able to maintain a share of the lead she shared last night.

Mark Horgan, our current leader in the Upset Pool, led a group of people just one game behind.  Also there is David Zimmerman – our other Thursday night co-leader – and Tanis Young.

And of course, my 6 year old son, Charlie Hodgson is tied for 6th in the group of 10 people who were able to get 25 of 32 games right.  Charlie is very devoted to the schools his grandparents are from, as well as bears, bulldogs, large cats, and his favorite color red.  These loyalties have served him well in the first round….

The Lunatic’s insane picks are lurking in a large tie for 88th place – getting 22 of the games right.  Really doesn’t feel like a bad showing in the opening round for our crazed resident blogger – and yet, no where close to be competitive against all of you.

Meanwhile, congratulations to Iowa State and Minnesota – our late game upsets.  Also, have to give credit to Western Kentucky, who gave #1 seed Kansas all it could handle.

Good luck to everyone in the second round.  Hope the upsets haven’t completely blown up your brackets.  And even if they have, remember – there is always the second chance pool!!!!!!!!!!