The evening games have been kind of rough as none of the games have really been close.   Marquette and South Carolina looked like it would be the exception, as with 11 minutes left, the score was 64-63.   South Carolina then outscored Marquette 29-10 to finish off the game with a 20 point victory.   It was a really impressive performance where for those 11 minutes, South Carolina seemed to score every time the court – they dominated the lane and were hitting three pointers – really tough to stop when you are hitting from both inside and outside.    But another reason why I mentioned this is at the end, as the South Carolina crowd in Greensville cheered on their team, the announcers mentioned that this is their first NCAA victory since 1973.   So – that is worthy of celebrating on the blog – congratulations to South Carolina for winning their first tournament game in 24 years.

That also ended the last chance for an upset (as Kentucky and UCLA are unlikely to lose their big leads).   Only 6 upsets happened this year – and according to Vegas, some of those were not upsets – pretty surprising that the chalk did so well.   But congratulations to #9 Michigan State, #10 Wichita State, #11 Xavier, #11 USC, #11 Rhode Island, and #12 Middle Tennessee State – thanks for giving us a few underdogs to root for over the weekend.

When someone sent out the memo that this was supposed to be a tournament with no upsets, they forgot to inform the 11 seeds.

First, Xavier continues to deny the odds.   In a late January game against St. John’s, the Musketeers lost their star guard Edmond Sumner to an ACL injury.  They went through February in a free fall, only being able to beat DePaul.   But Xavier managed to upset Butler in the Big East tournament to show they could still beat at-large talented teams to get into the tourney.    Then, yesterday, they were only one of two teams to pull an upset based on seeds – beating Maryland 76-65.

Today, USC came back from double digits for the second time this week to upset 6 seed SMU 66-65.   I am still surprised by how often this happens.  Every year, there are a couple teams that people say didn’t deserve to make the tournament (although this year has been a little bit more quiet than usual).  And every year, I find myself writing that you should pick that team to win – they seem to be so thankful the Selection Committee chose them, they play out of this world.   Welcome to the Second Round, USC Trojans – you have proven that you deserve to be at the dance.

Finally, Rhode Island went from potentially not even being in the tournament about a week beforehand, to winning the Atlantic Tournament, to beating Creighton 84-72.  What an amazing couple of weeks of momentum for the Rams.

The only 11 seed who hasn’t played is Kansas State – who won their First Four play-in game against Providence.   Considering Kansas State was the other team in the list of teams mentioned as lucky to be in the tournament considering they had a losing record in the Big 12, and that the other three 11 seeds won, I would not be happy if I was 6 seed Cincinnati.

Thank you to everyone for joining to stomp the Lunatic.   Congratulations to our first day leaders – assuming Arizona holds on to their 21 point lead with 1 minute remaining, we have 7 perfect entries (8 if you included my gag entry to follow how the AP Poll would have done – it won’t be as funny to me if it beats everyone).    It was mainly a day of chalk, but we did have a few upsets like #12 Middle Tennessee St and #11 Xavier.    Regardless, it is pretty impressive to still have a perfect bracket alive after 16 games.   Congratulations to Cooper Ams, Ryan Zotti, Bill Kahn, Matt Fischer, Earl McKnight, and both of Andrew Braslow’s brackets on what appears to be a perfect 16 for 16.

The Lunatic’s Sane Picks did a very respectable 14 of 16 games – putting him in a massive tie for 26th place.    All in all, we had 91 brackets get 14 or more correct, and 169 brackets get 13 or more correct – so lots of people had success with picking Thursday’s games.    I am always impressed by the amount of talent in the pool – but it looks like everyone came ready to stomp the Lunatic this year when you realize over 47% of the entries got no more than 3 games incorrect out of 16.

But as we all know, it might feel good to get so many games right, but just as is the case for the teams, the real goal is just survive and advance.   Because it is the later rounds when you really start getting some points – so as long as your Final Four is still alive, it is a good day.    With so much chalk winning, that should be the case for most of us.   Excited to see if Friday brings more upsets.   After all, it is St. Patrick’s Day – so there should be some interesting luck for the teams.

So very happy – was very nervous at half time – I don’t think I could take Purdue being a victim to an awesome mid-major school pulling a classic NCAA upset for a second year in a row.   GO BOILERS!!!!!!!!!

A little sad for the local team – I was hoping VCU would take this game, but St. Mary’s looked really, really good.

Four more games – so much basketball!!!!

Princeton almost kicked off the tournament by upsetting Notre Dame, but their shot at the buzzer missed.  Virginia found themselves behind early to UNC-Wilmington just to come back and win.   Exhale Fighting Irish and Cavalier fans – you are playing in the next round.

Of course, we have our #12 seed winner, as Middle Tennessee State beat Minnesota.   And Northwestern celebrated their first ever invite to the NCAA Tournament with their first ever victory – by holding off Vanderbilt in a wild finish.

We have 354 entries (although a few of them are some fun ones that I put in as the AP Poll, and RPI).   Even more impressive is that 46 still have perfect brackets after the first 8 games.   Should be a really competitive tournament and a really competitive Stomp the Lunatic Contest!!!!!

This is so exciting – maybe the best two days in college basketball is less than 24 hours away.   And so it is time for the Lunatic to release his picks.

In his sane picks, the Lunatic has Villanova beating Duke in the East, Arizona beating Gonzaga in the West, Louisville beating Kansas in the Midwest, and UNC beating UCLA in the South.   This will lead to a re-match of last year’s championship – where UNC will beat Villanova to take the title.

In his insane picks, the Lunatic has Villanova beating Duke in the East, Arizona beating Notre Dame in the West, his beloved Boilermakers from Purdue winning the Midwest against Oregon, and then UNC beating Kentucky in the South.   This will once again lead to a re-match of last year’s championship, but the Insane picks have Villanova successfully defending their championship against the Tar Heels.

In other website news, the Handicapping page is updated for all the First Round games – for those of you looking for some last minute advice that is probably doomed to fail.

Don’t miss your chance to join the fun!!!!   We already have 252 entries – and we always get tons of entries on the last day.   Make sure you get your picks in before Noon tomorrow, and good luck to everyone in Stomping the Lunatic!!!!!!!

In my rant tonight before the big day on Thursday (and as I wait to get a read on Providence and USC in tonight’s game!), I am really disappointed with ESPN and their analytics group.   All year, they have been pushing their BPI statistic.  I have read about the teams that are most likely going to lose because of their BPI.   I have seen them push that the Selection Committee should be using better analytics than the RPI – they should use Ken Pom and BPI as their guide.

The problem is that the models don’t lend themselves to credibility at the moment – they might have the last laugh, but it is hard to take them seriously with some of the ridiculous rankings that they have.   Since ESPN is marketing their model so much, here is how ridiculous these rankings have been.

• BPI is good with three of the #1 seeds (Villanova, Gonzaga and UNC) – but Kansas should be a 3 seed as the 10th best BPI team.
• So who is the 4th #1 – Virginia.   Yes – that is right, not Arizona, Kentucky, Duke, Louisville, or pick your 3 or 4 seed – Virginia is so poorly ranked that they are off by about 16 teams.
• Kentucky – which won the SEC by 2 games is behind Florida.   Which I guess isn’t as bad as Kansas – which won the Big 12 by 4 games is behind West Virginia.
• Syracuse and Indiana would both be in the field as 8 seeds – yes, that is right.  They are not on the bubble, they are safely in the field.
• Clemson would have been a 9 seed and Texas Tech and Houston would have been in as 11 seeds.
• Minnesota would have been a 10 seed if we listened to the BPI
• So which 5 teams would have been left out – those would have been the two teams playing right now (USC and Providence), #9 Seton Hall, #9 seed Virginia Tech, and #6 Maryland.   That’s right, they are saying that Maryland is 23 teams worse than their current seed.

I shouldn’t only hammer ESPN on this.   Some of the better known statistical ratings like KenPom and Sagarin also have some really strange rank orderings (also loving some of the same teams that BPI loves).   Which really makes me sad.   I think you really can leverage statistics to predict these events – and that should make them excellent for creating a ranking.   But they are breaking down this year – because they are inviting teams like Indiana, Clemson and Texas Tech that no one (except maybe fans of those teams) would argue should be in the field.

So, I did the obvious thing – I have entered all their ratings into the pool, just for fun so we can see how much better we can be over the models.   Fortunately for the models, the Selection Committee helps them out in a few places (for example, in KenPom 6 of the top 13 teams are all in the East, making games that could be Elite 8 type games happen in the 2nd round).   But my guess is that we are going to destroy them – and then hopefully, their owners will go and rebuild them over the off-season.

OK – going to stop my rant and enjoy the game.

 

Which is made even more happier by the first day of the NCAA Tournament.    And wouldn’t you know it, the game goes down to the buzzer, as Mount St. Mary’s hangs on to win 67-66 against New Orleans to be the first team to win a tournament game in 2017.   Hope that is a sign of things to come for the tourney!!!

So, as I get ready to watch the Wake Forest / Kansas State game, a few random thoughts:

• As is custom, since the Lunatic knows so many people will beat him in the pool, he has to do something else to show he knows something about college basketball.   So, the Lunatic’s Insane Handicapping page is back to demonstrate why the experts in Vegas make so much money each year – I mean, to show he can predict against the lines and spreads.
• The Lunatic somehow got all 68 teams in the bracket right – that is a very rare event indeed for the Lunatic’s Insane Bracketology.   I do have some complaints about the seeding, but for the most part, I can not complain about what the Selection Committee did – I think they got the right 68 teams (obviously).
• Those seeding complaints are around some of the top mid majors.   I know that Wichita State didn’t have a lot of top 25 wins, but they are a very good team – they should not be a 10 seed.   Just to put this in perspective, the experts in Vegas have the 10 seed Shockers as a 6 point favorite over 7 seed Dayton.   That type of line is normally reserved for a team that is 4-6 seeds better, not 3 seeds worse.  Add in the fact that last year’s darling, Middle Tennessee State goes 30-4 (including a 23 point victory over 9 seed Vanderbilt) and can only get a 12 seed.    They (and the Minnesota team that drew them) both deserved better.
• You have to love the tenacity of the Illinois State coach.  Illinois State couldn’t get a home and home against one of the top 6 conferences – which led to the weak non-conference schedule for the Redbirds.   After the committee saying that it was that schedule that held them out, ISU coach Dan Muller went to Twitter and sent out a message to the top 6 conferences that he is still waiting to see if anyone wants to step up and get a chance to have a quality road victory against his RPI 33 Redbirds.   Even better, Ole Miss’ AD took him up on the offer and it looks like they are going to play next year.
• It has been a rough few days in Syracuse.   While I did not believe they should get in, it is heartbreaking when you are on the bubble and it gets burst.   But then, the NIT decided to troll the Orange.  Many know that Jim Boeheim made press headlines at the ACC Tournament by saying that he was so happy that the tournament was in New York and that they should not have it in Greensboro for recruiting reasons.   So, the NIT’s gift to Syracuse was their first round opponent would be Southern Conference regular season champion, UNC-Greensboro.   Then, the blizzard from the current storm forced the game to have to be postponed until tomorrow.   Maybe they should have played the game in Greensboro instead of Syracuse.

As my last basketball act of the evening, I have finalized the Schedule 2017 Excel file so that it contains all the games from this season.

This also means that I was able to create the cheat sheets, so that if you don’t want to do large statistical analyses on the results of the games, you can still get some data to help with you decision making – where the two first round opponents will have their data and schedules next to each other so it is relatively easy to compare.

Both links should be in the Research section.

I am sure that I will be doing more rambling over the week.  There is my insane handicapping for the games that is sure to come – as well as the all important reveal of the Lunatic’s picks on Wednesday night (normally around the time that I give up on trying to statistically predict the games and just use the cheat sheets).    Lots of fun!!!!!!

This wonderful time of the year makes the Lunatic so happy – I have what is probably an unhealthy obsession for college basketball (at least, I am pretty sure that most people aren’t staying up until 3:30 am trying to predict the field).    So, I was pretty happy after all that insanity that I was correct that Syracuse didn’t make the field.

I shouted out “I am so glad that Syracuse didn’t make the field!!!!”

And Katie, my awesome 7-year old daughter, replied, “That’s right!  We’re Bears fans!!!  We can’t root for them!!!!”

I didn’t even know what to say – so I simply said, “That’s right, honey!!!!”   And we all know, with this kind of basketball insight, Katie is going to totally stomp the Lunatic.