The Final 4 is now set, as the Duke Blue Devils just were too tough on defense and managed to go on two significant runs in the second half to finish off Gonzaga to win the South Regional in Houston.

Gonzaga made a run at trying to make the Final Four for the first time in school history – as they quickly turned a 5 point half time deficit to a 4 point lead.  But Duke quickly went on a 9 point run to take back control.  And then, the Blue Devils stopped Gonzaga from getting a basket from the field for the final 6 minutes to continue to pull farther and farther ahead.

Congratulations to the Duke Blue Devils – the final team to punch their ticket to Indianapolis.    If the games continue to be as close as they were this weekend, it will be an amazing Final Four!!!!!!

The East Regional Final was so awesome that they needed 5 more minutes to determine a champion.  It was a tale of two halves – in the first half, Louisville destroyed the Spartans in the paint and jumped out to an 8 point half time lead.  As Louisville was holding for the last shot in the first half (which they made), CBS posted a pretty amazing stat – the Cardinals had won 94 straight games where they had a lead of 6 or more at the half.

Only problem is no one told the Michigan State Spartans that the odds said the game was over.  Michigan State started driving to the basket, took the inside game away on defense and really opened up the game to having both some impressive drives and nice kick-outs for three to take the lead.  But neither team could hit the critical free throws at the end of the game to take the game – sending it to overtime.

Then, the Spartans kicked off the overtime with a big three-point shot that gave the Spartans a lead that this time, they would not give up.   Branden Dawson hit a huge tip-in with about 30 seconds left, and then Travis Trice hit two free throws to finish the game and send Michigan State to Indianapolis.

Congratulations to the Michigan State Spartans, our third team to reach the Final Four!

What an incredible game.  You have to give all the praise to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, as they gave Kentucky everything that they had.  The Irish held the lead through most of the second half, but Karl-Anthony Towns kept scoring down low, and his 25 points helped lead the Irish back to tie the game with about a minute to play.

Then, Kentucky played their amazing tough defense – blocked yet another shot to force a shot clock violation, and then Andrew Harrison drove hard to the basket to draw a foul with 6 seconds left, allowing the Wildcats to take the lead from the line.  Yet, there was still discomfort as the Irish pushed the ball up the court – and it wasn’t until Jerian Grant’s three point attempt missed the basket and the clock struck zero that the Wildcats could finally relax.

So, the Wildcats finally found themselves challenged in this tournament – and the #1 seed managed to rise above the challenge to survive and advance.   The SEC Champion will be dancing in Indianapolis – awaiting them is the team that they met in last year’s final four, the Wisconsin Badgers.  Considering last year was a one point game, I imagine this year will shape up to be an outstanding game as well.

Frank Kaminsky scored 29 points, Sam Dekker added 27, and the Badgers shot 10 of 12 from the three point line to overcome a 3 point halftime lead from the Wildcats to take the first spot in the Final Four.

You have to feel a little bit for the Arizona Wildcats, this is their 5th straight loss in the Elite 8 in the last 11 seasons – and 3rd in the last 4 seasons.   Not to mention, this is the second year in a row that the Badgers have come to California to end the Wildcats season.

However, the Big 10 champions just were too good offensively tonight – congratulations to the Badgers for winning the West Regional!

Congratulations to Duke and Michigan State for winning the final 2 spots in the Elite 8.  Duke managed to have one more extra run thanks to Justise Winslow, while Michigan State seemed to manage to stay consistently just one basket ahead of the Sooners to outlast Oklahoma.   But there was one really revealing thing that happened – the Blue Devils and Spartans showed a quality of a great team closing a game that gets overlooked.   They hit their free throws.

Duke hit 8 of their last 10 free throws (ignoring the 1 for 2 with 0.7 seconds left that at this point didn’t matter), and Michigan State hit their last 6 free throws to both seal the games.  It is hard to come back against a team when they hit those critical FTs at the end of the game.

So – the stage is set – we have Kentucky vs. Notre Dame, Wisconsin vs. Arizona, Louisville vs. Michigan State, and Duke vs. Gonzaga.   Four games with the winners heading to Indianapolis to play for the championship.

In our championship, Edward Zhang has reclaimed the lead at 770 points.   Nathan Standley and Kevin find themselves just 10 points back, Alex Simon is 20 points back, and Joe Haggerty and Ann Hawkins are just 30 points back.

In the Upset Pool, Will Shipley has taken over the lead of the Upset Pool thanks to picking Michigan State – Will is followed closely by Donna Woodburn – just 5 points back, and Edward Zhang who is just 9 points back.

This might be the year that we will have to use the tie-breaker vigilantly for the Second Chance Bracket – we have 22 entries that went a perfect 8 for 8 in the Sweet 16.  There will obviously still be some separation from the Elite 8 games – but if the chalk keeps winning, there are likely going to be some ties.

The Lunatic is quietly lurking in a tie for 25th place.  His insane picks of watching the East Region blow up have led to getting 7 of the 8 Elite 8 teams correctly – making up some ground from all of the other crazy picks he made.  Will the weekend squash any dreams for a comeback – we all probably know that answer.   STOMP! STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

It is tough when you are a college basketball crazed fan when your choices at 11:30 pm at night are to watch the halftime show of the last game of the night, or watch Kentucky completely destroy West Virginia – currently the Wildcats are leading by 35 points – as I imagine the Mountaineers are thinking that the next 12 minutes can not go fast enough.  Normally, I would say any basketball game is better than watching a halftime show – but at the moment, I am just not sure that holds in this case.

Although this is a good message of warning to Notre Dame – don’t make any comments about Kentucky going to be 37-1 after you are done with them (the way one of West Virginia’s players did this week).  They seem to be a little inspired to prove a point – don’t poke the Wildcat – it bites……

Well – this is normally the time that the Lunatic gets his expert panel together – himself, Mrs. Lunatic, Charlie and Katie – and pick the Sweet 16 games.

But with only 12 minutes before the games, the Lunatic has come to a sad moment of realization.

The cutest part of this segment was his darling kids, where they would pick because of where Grandpa went to school or because Nanny and Grandma are Irish, or because their favorite color was purple.

But my eight year old son and five year old daughter surprised me this year – apparently they have become autonomous.

Here is how our experts pick:

Charlie – the co-leader of the pool – asked me to check what ESPN PickCenter had and went with it (except for NC State against Louisville since the Wolfpack beat the Cardinals earlier in the year).   If you want to know who he picked, just go to ESPN.

Katie – who I expected that I could still convince to play along, picked Wisconsin over UNC because Charlie did, and then shockingly picked Utah over Duke (I think because Utah was the second team I mentioned and she was bored by this point and just said the last thing I said).

Myself – I entered my Handicapping – but it is doing so poorly that it doesn’t deserve to make its way into the front page.  If you want to make money in Vegas, take my picks and go against them.

And then Mrs. Lunatic – who is just sitting with a large smile on her face – is just happy that she does not have to deal with this nonsense.  She is a great sport and puts up with me during this time of year.

So – there you go, the type of analysis that you have come to learn and expect from the Stomp the Lunatic Blog.   Enjoy the Sweet 16 games tonight!!!!!!!!

Ten reasons to do the Stomp the Lunatic Second Chance Pool

• You no longer have a Final Four team left in your real bracket after your creative Big 12 / Big East winners by picking Kansas, Baylor, Villanova, and Georgetown blew up
• You want another chance to say that you had a perfect bracket after your billion dollar picks were ruined in the second game when UAB upset Iowa State.
• Now that your school has been eliminated from the tournament, you can pick teams intelligently and really show off you basketball knowledge instead of blindly picking Purdue – whoops, I mean your school’s team.
• Your son who chose based on whoever ESPN Pick Center said would win and your daughter who picked schools which are purple because that is her favorite color are both beating you in the pool and you want another chance to redeem yourself
• Because there is not a pool that allows you to pick who gets eliminated each week from Dancing With the Stars.
• You have decided that all the teams you pick are jinxed, and since there are still schools out there that you don’t like, you want to test the theory by picking them. If you have that power (like the Lunatic does), you might as well use that power for good
• You want to be able to say that you legitimately picked in a bracket for a double digit seed to make the Elite 8 – go UCLA!!!!!!
• You want to be able to pick an all ACC bracket (Notre Dame, UNC, Louisville / NC State, and Duke) and then scream at your television the remainder of the tournament as Kentucky starts knocking them off one by one.
• It is another – and more importantly, last chance in 2015 to STOMP THE LUNATIC!
• It’s absolutely FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s right – your entry fee already covers your Second Chance Pool entry – and so there is absolutely no good reason not to do the Second Chance Pool. You even have all Thursday afternoon to do them, since the games don’t start until 7:15 pm. Good luck to all of you!!

It was an interesting weekend.  Lots of favorites have made their way to the Sweet 16.  There is only one double digit seed left, and while we tend to like to call them Cinderella, it is hard for me to consider UCLA a Cinderella team – but the likes of NC State, Michigan State and Wichita State don’t feel right either.   Looks like we will have a lot of the traditional power conferences fight it out for the championship.

But I can ramble about that later.  Lets get to the standings.

The leaders in the pool are Edward Zhang and the Lunatic’s eight year old son, Charlie Hodgson – sitting great with 490 points.

But they are followed closely by Tony Bisese, Greg Williams, Nick Kindig, Chris Franklin, Jason Lee, Dave Wagner, Will Shipley, Dominic Shaw, and Kynan Bush at 480 points, and another 11 people at 470.

In the Upset Pool, Donna Woodburn is still well ahead at 233 points.  Will Shipley has moved into 2nd with 211 – followed by Greg Williams (208), Jason Lee (203), Clay Holloway (202) and Brian Lawton (202).

The Lunatic is currently being thoroughly stomped – as his picks are both in the middle of the pack (best in a tie for 101st place).

But for those of you in the middle, remember the points go up from here on in – so if you have some wilder picks still alive to make it to the Final Four, you have chances to move up.

For those of you who might have hung you hopes on some of the surprising upset teams like Villanova, Virginia, Kansas, Iowa State and Baylor and have already ripped up your bracket – don’t forget – there is always the Second Chance Pool.  That’s right, there is that chance for redemption to start over so don’t forget to login and fill out your second chance entry!

Virginia looked like they got a huge opportunity on Saturday night, when fellow ACC school, NC State took out the #1 seed in the East.  Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, their game on Sunday was against Michigan State.

The Spartans jumped out quickly to a 15-4 lead and never looked back.   While the Cavaliers managed to close the gap through their amazing defense, the Michigan State’s defense was just as good.  And Travis Trice hit a big three pointer with about 2 and a half minutes left to give the Spartans a large enough lead to hold off Virginia.

So, for the first time since 2004, a region will have neither of its top 2 seeds in the Sweet 16.   Congratulations to Michigan State on a fantastic victory.