Stomp The Lunatic

Category: 2014 Blog

  • The Lunatic’s Bracketology is released

    Well, Kentucky almost taking out Florida, as well as Michigan State beating Michigan made me have to make some late changes.

    But my Bracketology page is now on the site.  One of these years, I will have to do this a little differently than just quickly putting something out before the committee.

    Especially, around the bubble, I put teams more where I thought the committee would than where I would put teams.  I am hoping the committee proves me wrong with Green Bay.  I would much rather see a regular season champion get the last spot – but when comparing resumes, my last team in, the Dayton Flyers, have more quality wins.  I think that will matter.

    Anyways, the moment is almost here.  The selection committee is about to announce the field of 68 – and then, my favorite tournament begins.   MARCH MADNESS IS AWESOME!!!!!!

  • The Schedules are Updated

    The 2014 Schedules are updated all the way through Saturday night’s games.  So, at this point, there are only the 5 championship games remaining (Atlantic 10, Sun Belt, ACC, Big 10, SEC) – there shouldn’t be any more bid stealers hanging around – although St. Joseph’s would make their Sunday afternoon a lot less nervous if they were able to beat VCU today.

    And I wouldn’t be surprised if either the Michigan / Michigan State or Duke / Virginia game ends up determining the race the for the last #1 seed (as most believe Wichita State, Florida and Arizona are safely the other three #1 seeds).  Then again, at this point, as I prepare my bracketology update, it is one of those years that I am really not sure who is going to be on the top line.  With Arizona losing twice recently, Villanova’s shocking early loss in the Big East tournament, and Kansas falling apart as their star center has been injured, it is really unclear what the committee will do.

    Should be a fun day – only 5 games, but they are probably going to be really fun.  March is definitely here.

  • Rough season to be a regular season champion

    The NIT might be a difficult tournament to get into this year.  That is because the automatic bids to regular season champions that don’t win their conference tournament or an NCAA at-large bid get an automatic birth into the NIT.

    And sadly for the regular season champions, they are falling like flies.   Here is the list of top seeds that lost so far.

    • America East – Vermont
    • Atlantic 10 – St. Louis (will still get an NCAA bid)
    • Atlantic Sun – Florida Gulf Coast (although at least they lost to their co-champ Mercer)
    • Big 12 – Kansas (will still get an NCAA bid)
    • Big East – Villanova (will still get an NCAA bid)
    • Big South – High Point
    • Horizon – Green Bay
    • MAAC – Iona
    • NEC – Robert Morris
    • OVC – Belmont
    • Patriot – Boston University
    • Southern – Davidson
    • SWAC – Southern (although they apparently are not eligible due to academic reasons)

    And there is still lots of games still to be played.  14 top seeds are still playing in their tournaments.

    Right now, that means only Delaware (Colonial), Wichita State (MVC), North Dakota State (Summit) and Gonzaga (WCC) have so far managed to win their conference tournaments (guess we could throw Atlantic Sun co-champ Mercer into the mix).

    Normally, the top seeds of the small conferences do better than this.  But this year, with all these teams that dominated their conferences in the regular season are losing their bids and falling into the at-large pool, it does make you start to wonder if the Ivy league has the right idea to give their invitation to the dance to their regular season champion…

    I know it will never happen – it is all about money.  But it hurts to see all these teams work so hard to win their conference only to have those dreams dashed in a 3-4 day tournament.

     

  • The Bubble IS NOT SOFT!!!!!!!!!

    It happens every year – someone comments about how soft the bubble is.  Once again, I am sure they do it just to build conversation but it still rubs me the wrong way.  This weekend, the ESPN Bubble Watch writer finally broke out this horrible statement (I am actually shocked I had not seen it up to this point).  Eamonn Brennan brought out his typical soft bubble article – and as he said, Championship Week isn’t going to change that.

    I hate when writers do this – because it diminishes the work that so many teams have done during the season.  Lets looks at some of the soft teams that are on the bubble.

    There is Nebraska – who finished 4th in the Big Ten, including victories against Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Ohio State.

    How about Xavier – who finished tied for 3rd in the Big East, and was able to knock off both Creighton and Cincinnati.

    We could talk about Dayton – who went 10-6 in the Atlantic 10 while being able to beat Gonzaga, UMass, St. Louis and George Washington – all likely tournament teams.

    The last team in according to ESPN is Arkansas – who swept Kentucky, and beat fellow bubble teams SMU and Minnesota.

    Do I think any of these teams are going to win the entire tournament.  No – of course not.  Do you remember a double digit seed every winning the tournament, so I think it is unfair to blame these teams because they are likely going to fall like other bubble teams have done.  But they have not had bad seasons – they have been very strong teams, and have shown the capability on a given night to beat a top 4 seed.

    But that brings me to the thing that really makes me upset about this.  Lets talk about Horizon regular season champion Green Bay.  During the non-conference season, the Phoenix had one of the more stunning upsets of the season when they beat eventual ACC regular season champion Virginia.  This was after almost beating Wisconsin earlier in the season.  These are teams that are figuring to be top 3 seeds – and they held their own with them.  So, what else did the Phoenix do.

    Overall, Green Bay went 7-3 in the non-conference against Division 1 opponents, with a win over Tulsa (one of the co-champs of Conference USA) and respectable losses to Harvard (the Ivy champion) and Eastern Michigan (a MAC team with a winning record and top 100 RPI – although we know the RPI is a flawed number).  Then, Green Bay dominated the Horizon – going 14-2, only losing to Milwaukee (their main rival) and Valparaiso (in a game they played without their second leading scorer).   So, they would have been 21-4 if you don’t include the game their center was hurt.

    Then, came the conference tournament, where they got upset by the same Milwaukee team that upset them in the regular season.  And now, unfortunately to most, you have a small conference team with an RPI of 60 and no chance of getting invited to the Big Dance.

    Brennan is so sure of this, that he didn’t even include the Phoenix in his Bubble Watch – although surprisingly, he still has Louisiana Tech – another one of the Conference USA co-champs on the list.  Why is this surprising.

    RPI: Green Bay (60)   Louisiana Tech (68)

    Best Victory:  Green Bay (Virginia – RPI 12),  Louisiana Tech (Oklahoma – 22)

    Non-conf SOS:   Green Bay (60), Louisiana Tech (288)

    Overall SOS:  Green Bay (163), Louisiana Tech (248)

    Bad Losses:   Louisiana Tech (2),  Green Bay (3)

    So – of all the metrics that the committee harps on, Green Bay has the advantage over Louisiana Tech with the exception of Bad Losses.  And even that is debatable.  Unlike the 2 LT losses, 2 of Green Bay’s happened to the team that is going to be playing in the NCAA Tournament (Milwaukee) and 1 happened while they had a major injury.

    But I digress – quite frankly, I believe both teams at least belong in the bubble discussion.  But that is the thing that makes me so mad about writers saying the bubble is soft.  Green Bay went 21-6, beat the ACC regular champ, lost by 3 to a team likely to be a protected seed, 3 of their other 5 losses are to teams who will also be dancing, and one of their losses happened without one of their best players.  And this writer who says the bubble is so soft doesn’t even put this team on the list.  They are not even good enough to be one of the weak teams being considered to get rolled over by a top seed in the tournament.  This is a complete travesty, and an unbelievable amount of disrespect to what was truly a fantastic season for Green Bay.

    They did everything they were supposed to do except for win the final 2 games of the season that mattered – the games they needed to win in their conference tournament to get the Horizon’s bid.  The least that we can do if we are going to call the bubble soft is invite the Phoenix into the discussion – their resume deserves that.

    I don’t know if Green Bay gets in.  History says that regular season champions of small conferences that have RPIs greater than 50 don’t have a great chance.  But if the committee decides to ignore history and ignore ESPN’s opinion, they will be picking a team that is very deserving of being invited to the dance and very capable of pulling the type of first round upset that is what makes the tournament so special.

     

  • Welcome to the 2014 Stomp the Lunatic Contest!!!!!!

    We already know from previous blog posts that the Lunatic is just screaming to get out.  The Lunatic still has a bunch of work to do to get ready – as it wouldn’t be the Lunatic contest without having tons of data and crazy analysis.  But there is one thing that is ready – the main parts of the site.  If you want to register early, you are welcome to do so – although obviously, you can wait until the Selection Committee actually announces the field of 68.  All are welcomed to try to stomp the Lunatic.  This feels like the time to have some kind of trash talk about how no one will beat the Lunatic this year.  But we all know the truth – the Lunatic is crazy if he thinks that he will be able to pick better than all of you!!!!

    Good luck to everyone in Stomping the Lunatic!!!!!

  • Congratulations to Harvard

    Their 70-58 victory over Yale earned the Crimson the Ivy League regular season championship.  And thanks to the fact that the Ivy League still rewards their regular season champion their automatic bid into the tournament instead of some team that gets hot for 3-5 days, Harvard managed to become the first team to punch their ticket to the Big Dance.   No need to sweat out Selection Sunday like many teams will – the Crimson will be dancing.    And at 25-4, this could be one of those Cinderella teams – the small conference champion that no one wants to face.  Will the Crimson match their performance from last year, when as a 14 seed, they knocked off New Mexico.  We will know in just a couple weeks!!!

  • Bracketology already pushing me into insanity

    Those loyal to the Stomp the Lunatic Contest know my opinions of the Bracketology pages.  For those who don’t, I feel they do a lot of teams a dis-service.  My only hopes is that the Selection Committee ignores these folks – but it has got to be hard to not let it influence you.  If Joe Lunardi from ESPN and Jerry Palm from CBS both say that Providence should be one of the last bubble teams in, how much does that make the committee think – maybe they’re right.  If a committee member is questioning what is the right ranking for Ohio State and sees both “experts” listing the Buckeyes as a 6 seed – does that influence the ranking.

    I totally think it is entertaining to read – and these guys put themselves on the line as they put their rankings out there for everyone to see.  And in Lunardi’s case, you can even go backwards in the season and see previous rankings.  But then they make these statements that just make my blood boil.

    Lunardi is the one who pushed my buttons last night.  When Joe put his last update on Thursday onto the ESPN page, he had the following rankings:

    1 – Arizona, Florida, Syracuse, Wichita State

    2 – Kansas, Duke, Wisconsin, Creighton

    After Virginia’s dominating victory against Syracuse, there was a blurb from ESPN that it looked like Kansas would move up to the top line.   That seems fair enough.  Then came Oklahoma State’s upset of the Jayhawks.  Which then included the next tweet…

    “Keeping Kansas on the top line despite latest loss.  Two reasons: (1) overall body of work; (2) rules still require four No. 1 seeds.”

    OK – so I realize Twitter’s lack of characters allows for a lot of lack of clarity.  But let me get this straight.  Three days ago, based on important qualities “like body of work” – Joe felt Syracuse was the 3rd best team and Kansas was the 5th.  Then, after Syracuse loses on the road to a team he currently had ranked as a 3 seed (and is now the ACC regular season champion) – and Kansas loses on the road to a team struggling to get to .500 in their conference and keep their tournament hopes alive, it becomes obvious that Kansas should be ranked higher because of only “body of work”.

    I get it, a lot of top teams lost – and so it feels like no one is deserving the final top seed.  But it seems awfully inconsistent to say body of work – Kansas’s body of work before yesterday’s game wasn’t better in his mind.  So – how does losing to Oklahoma State (instead of Virginia) make that so obvious he should switch.  I think it is fair to say that now that both teams have blemishes on their resume, the fact that Kansas is still going to win their regular season championship (barring collapse) will give them a leg up in getting the last top seed.  But I don’t think you can claim body of work, when you weren’t saying that three days ago.

    You might say, Tom – it doesn’t matter.  Both Kansas and Syracuse will be in the tournament as a top 1 or 2 seed – it is irrelevant.  But in my mind, it isn’t.  Because if Joe uses this type of logic on the top of his bracket, he is likely doing it on the bottom as well.  My only hope is that the committee doesn’t get influenced too much by these experts.

    OK – back to getting the Lunatic site back up and running.  I only have two weeks until the madness begins.

  • March is here!!!!!

    We still have some time until the tournament – but March is here!!!!!!!     So, that can only mean one thing – the Lunatic is coming out for another year of insane madness.   Looking forward to the conference tournaments that are coming up!!!!!