To put into perspective what type of unexpected and amazing run this was for the Huskies – for the first time in the Lunatic Pool history, no one predicted the champion.   To add to it, no one was willing to take the Huskies in the Second Chance Pool either.

 

And now, the part you all have been waiting for – congratulations to our 2014 Stomp the Lunatic champion – Chris Franklin.  Chris managed to play an unusual pool type of defense by taking the lead going into the Final 4, not score a single point in the last 3 games, and yet manage to hang on to the victory.

 

Our Upset Pool saw a similar feat – as Michelle Horgan’s 279 points hung on to win.  Her gutsy pick of taking the Dayton Flyers to make it to the Elite 8 helped gain Michelle enough upset points to coast to victory.

 

Then, there was the only part of the pool that was still up for grabs tonight – the Second Chance Pool.  Thanks to the Huskies victory, Will Caldwell hung on to the victory with 640 points.

 

Here are the full set of winners:

​Standard Pool

1)     Chris Franklin – 840

2)     Kyle Kelly, Chuck Brugh, and Amy Lancette – 830

5)     Michael Strange – 820

6)     Rob Bradley – 810

7)     James Franklin – 800

8)     Emily Vittum – 790

9)     Robert Shipp and Jerry Caldwell – 780

LAST) Barbara Hodgson – 210 (you should not have challenged Chris!!!)

 

​Upset Pool:

1) Michelle Horgan – 279

2) Sarah Manley – 265

3) Clay Holloway – 259

4) Chuck Brugh – 258

5) Christy Lindvall – 255

 

​Second Chance Pool:

1) Will Caldwell – 640

2) Edward Zhang – 600

3) Chauncey, Jenn Carter, and Tonya Cole – 520

 

The Lunatic is embarrassed to mention that if leveraging the tie-breaker, 130 entries stomped the Lunatic – another thorough stomping!!!!!!!   Well done by everyone in the pool in putting the Lunatic in his proper place!!!!

 

Thanks to all of you for making this such a fun pool – hope that everyone enjoyed the games!!!!   Congratulations again to all our winners and of course, Connecticut Huskies – the 2014 NCAA Men’s Basketball Champions.

The Wildcats kept fighting back and fighting back – but they could never get past being down 1 point.  In the end, there was just way too much Shabazz Napier – as the 22 points from the senior led the Connecticut Huskies to a 60-54 victory.

It was a little surprising how the last minute went with Kentucky deciding not to foul – and then making the mistake and fouling in the final seconds of the shot clock.  In the end, the freshmen just couldn’t keep coming back.  The Huskies defense was just too strong – as it shut down the high scoring Wildcats to just 54 points.

Congratulations to the UConn Huskies – our 2014 National Champions!!!

 

So, with a championship game between a 7 seed and an 8 seed, maybe anything should be considered possible.  But who had the Huskies jumping out to a 15 point lead in the first half.

And then, after that, who had the Wildcats going to a zone defense to claw their way back to be only down 4 at halftime.   One almost has to wonder – the only game that Kentucky has been leading at halftime was their first game against Kansas State.  So, they find themselves in a familiar position.

Will the experience of the talented Huskies’ guards finish an incredible journey to a championship.  Or will the youthful Wildcats continue to defy the odds and pull off one last amazing comeback.   Only 20 minutes will tell…….

Well – if it wasn’t abundantly clear, it is now.  For the third game in a row, with time running out on the Wildcats season, the ball ended up in Aaron Harrison’s hands.  And as in the Louisville and Michigan games, Aaron Harrison put another dagger into his opponent’s hearts – as his three pointer with 5 seconds left in the game goes through the bottom of the net.

After it looked like the Badgers might have the game won from the FT line, Traevon Jackson allowed the refs to bail him out on a wild three point shot that was clearly an attempt to get fouled.  But the Badgers guard could only hit two of the three FTs, setting up Harrison’s third chance to win the game.

There have been some amazing players in this tournament hitting clutch shots, but at this point it is no contest.  If I need a basket at the end of the game, I want the ball in Aaron Harrison’s hands.

And if my scenario files are correct, that means congratulations are in order.   Chris Franklin was rooting for chaos going into this weekend, as the leader of the pool but with no more chances to score points.   And with the #7 seed Huskies and #8 seed Wildcats winning tonight, no one else will be able to score any points either. While it is still unofficial – congratulations, Chris on winning the Stomp the Lunatic contest!!!!

After falling behind 16-4 to the #1 seeded Florida Gators, the Huskies found themselves in a familiar position.  They had fallen down double digits in both their first two games of the tournament to St. Joseph’s and Villanova.   They had also found themselves behind 9 points to the Michigan State Spartans.

But these Huskies don’t know what it means to give up – and so when they found themselves down 12 points to the top seed of the tournament, they just kicked their game up to another gear.

By the end, DeAndre Daniels put up 20 points – and Ryan Boatright and Shabazz Napier completely stuffed the Florida backcourt – including holding SEC player of the year, Scottie Wilbekin to 4 points.

And so, the Lunatic’s curse is complete.  The Florida Gators tried their hardest to avoid it, but in the end, the Lunatic’s curse is too strong.   And so were the UConn Huskies – they dominated the last 30 minutes of this game and have earned their way to the championship.

As we are just 5 minutes away from the start of the Final Four, it seems appropriate to offer congratulations to the smaller tournament champions.

Congratulations need to go out to the Minnesota Gophers, who in the first season under Richard Pitino, managed to claim the NIT tournament title over SMU – the team that looked like the largest snub from the NCAA tourney by being ranked in the top 25 in the last week before the polls and then missed the field.

Then, in the CIT tournament, Murray State from the Ohio Valley Conference pulled away from Yale for a 65-57 victory.

Then, in the crazy CBI tournament, Siena and Fresno State racked up on travel miles as they played their best 2 out of 3 series against each other.  Today, it was Siena who finally finished off Fresno State with a 81-68 victory to take the decisive third game.

So, congratulations to Minnesota, Murray State and Siena – who managed to finish their seasons on winning notes.  And now, let the Final Four begin!!!!!!!!

As said in the weekly update email, the unofficial scenarios are available – just check out the links to the left and see which outcome gives you the best chances to do well in the pool.

Good luck to everyone!!!!

At this very critical point in the tournament, the people who have positioned them at the top of the standings are now in very good shape.   That is because, thanks to the upsets today by Connecticut and Kentucky, there really is not a lot of chances for scoring.

If I have looked correctly, only Clay Holloway picked Kentucky to the championship game, where he had them losing to UCLA.  But he is not within 120 points of the leaders, so while that scenario will jump him up in the standings, he will not be able to overtake the lead.

And that is better than Connecticut – which no one had to the championship.

So, that basically leaves three camps.  Those rooting for Florida to win.  Those rooting for Wisconsin to win.  And those rooting for continued chaos to reign supreme.

That brings us to our leaders…..

In the standard pool, our leader, Chris Franklin is hanging on by a thread at 840 points.  That is because while he is the leader, he also has no more way to score points – and there are several people close behind.  So, Chris definitely is in the third camp.

He is followed by Chuck Brugh (our 2007 upset pool co-champion), Kyle Kelly (our 2013 defending champion), and Amy Lancette.  Of course, in this group with two past champions, it makes sense that Amy is the one to watch – she is the top person who has Wisconsin winning it all, while Chuck and Kyle are joining Chris in the third camp of chaos

Then, we have Michael Strange only 20 points behind, Rob Bradley only 30 points behind, James Franklin only 40 points behind (and most importantly the top score with Florida winning), Emily Vittum only 50 points behind and Robert Shipp and Jerry Caldwell only 60 points behind.

Of additional noteworthiness, Ruoyu Fan and Steve Glass are only 70 back – and the top scores where they have Florida actually beating Wisconsin.  We only had 5 people picking Wisconsin, and only one of them (Hamer) had them beating Florida.  But if I have done the math right, Amy is far enough ahead that she will win if Wisconsin wins.

But that is not all – there are two more pools to go!!!!!!!!!!

In our upset pool, while it is not official, it looks like no one is going to catch Michelle Horgan at 279 points.  Sarah Manley is 14 points behind, Chuck Brugh is 21 points behind, Christy Lindvall is 24 points behind, and Justin Gorman and Amy Lancette are 30 points behind.

And finally, the second chance pool doesn’t appear to have anyone with all 4 Final Four.  While not official, it definitely looks from the leaders that despite only needing to pick two rounds correctly for just the winners, none of us could do it – guess that is why Warren Buffett was so comfortable to offer a billion dollars for a perfect bracket – we could even do it for the last 15 games.   But that doesn’t matter to our leaders.  Will Caldwell has a small lead at 520 points – having gotten 3 of the final 4 correct.   He is followed by John Woodburn, Edward Zhang, and Jess Atkinson who are only 40 points behind.

The Lunatic is no longer lurking.  He is in the tie for 126th place with his only ability to get points being for Florida wins.  While a Florida victory might make it less of a stomping, since many people have the Gators, it should still be a pretty solid stomping by the pool – good job by everyone!!!!

Good luck to all the leaders – and for everyone, enjoy the Final Four games – if this weekend is any indication, it should be a fanastic finish.

 

Aaron Harrison might be a freshman, but this weekend, he has shown that he might be the most clutch shooter in the tournament.

On Friday night, with only 40 seconds left, Harrison nailed a three pointer from the corner to give Kentucky a 2 point lead and put the dagger into their arch rivals Louisville.  Then, today, with just 3 seconds left in the game, after a wild sequence that had the Michigan Wolverines tie the game with a tip-in, Aaron struck again.  With a man in his face, Harrison drilled another late game three pointer to lead his Wildcats to the Final Four.

So, after another amazing finish, the Final Four is set.   We will have Florida going up against Connecticut, the last team to beat the Gators before they went on a 30 game winning streak.  And then, we will have another SEC team, the Kentucky Wildcats, whose amazing freshmen will go against the Wisconsin Badgers – who ironically, are the only other team to have beaten the #1 Gators.

Arlington will get the #1 team going into the tournament, going against the only two teams that beat it in the regular season and the team that lost to it by one point in the SEC championship.   Should be a fun Final Four!!!!

In a game of runs, the team that went on the final streak was the UConn Huskies.  Shabizz Napier scored 25 points and hit some key shots at the end of the game as the Spartans were trying to tie the game.

It was an amazing run for Tom Izzo.   Izzo has now coached at Michigan State for 19 years, and this is the first time one of his recruiting classes did not make it to the Final Four.  Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for the rest of the Big 10), that recruiting pitch will now have to say the Elite 8 (which is still an incredible streak).

In an interesting turn of events, this year’s tournament is trying to make it hard for me to make my statement.   Almost every year, you get to the point that the final teams remaining have either won a share of their conference’s regular season championship or they won their conference tournament.   However, with three teams now having made it to the Final Four, only Florida can make that claim.  Wonder if that bodes well for Kentucky in the final regional championship.