All the conference tournaments are over, the selection committee has made their decisions and we have the 68 teams for the 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament!!!!

And so that means it can only mean one thing, it is time to Stomp the Lunatic!!!!   I am going to get the email sent out, but you don’t need to wait.    The 2017 Stomp the Lunatic is officially ready to begin!!!!  The brackets are loaded, the entry forms are ready – all that is needed are your picks!!!!

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

Thanks to Charlie’s Cub Scouts’ meeting, the Lunatic has to release his bracketology a little early this year.

There’s always two places of interest – the 4 #1 seeds, and which bubble teams had their bubble burst by the selection committee.

The Lunatic awarded the top seeds to Villanova, Kansas, Gonzaga and UNC – though thought hard about Kentucky, Arizona and Duke.

As for the bubble, the Lunatic last 5 teams in were Vanderbilt, Rhode Island, Wake Forest, USC, and Kansas State – leaving Cal, Illinois State, Georgia and Syracuse the top seeds in the NIT.

All his seeding, contingencies for today’s 6 championships, and analysis of why he picked who he did is on the full Bracketology page.

Also, for the people craving data, the Schedule file is updated through all Saturday’s games.

Enjoy today’s 6 championship games, and good luck to all of your teams in getting good seeds in the tournament.   Selection Show is less that 5 hours away!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is my view of championship week – without close looks at profiles (too many fun games to watch to look at profiles).   A chance at a bid stealer in the Atlantic 10 – should be a fun tournament.   And Alabama is doing their best to get in the conversation in the SEC.

Conference	Champion	Locks (53 with Conf Champs)	Likely In (7)	Bubble (8 remaining spots)
ACC	Duke vs Notre Dame	North Carolina (4), Louisville (7), Duke (9), Florida St (13), Virginia (18), Notre Dame (21)	Miami FL (42), Virginia Tech (46)	Wake Forest (39), Syracuse (85)
Big 12	West Virginia vs Iowa St	Kansas (2), Baylor (11), West Virginia (23), Iowa St (24)	Oklahoma St (41)	Kansas St (58), TCU (69)
Big East	Villanova vs Creighton	Villanova (1), Butler (14), Creighton (25)	Xavier (34), Seton Hall (45)	Providence (57), Marquette (59)
Big 10	Minnesota vs Michigan, Wisconsin vs Northwestern	Purdue (20), Minnesota (19), Maryland (30), Wisconsin (35), Michigan (38)	Northwestern (48)	Michigan St (50), Illinois (63), Indiana (80)
Pac 12	Oregon vs Arizona	Oregon (6), Arizona (3), UCLA (15)		USC (43), California (55)
SEC	Kentucky vs Alabama, Arkansas vs Vanderbilt	Kentucky (5), Florida (10), Arkansas (28)	South Carolina (44)	Vanderbilt (33), Georgia (52), Mississippi (68), Alabama (79)
American	SMU vs UCF, Cincinnati vs Connecticut	SMU (17), Cincinnati (12)		Houston (54), UCF (68), Connecticut (114)
Atlantic 10	Rhode Island vs Davidson, VCU vs Richmond	Dayton (26), VCU (22)		Rhode Island (40), Richmond (78), Davidson (84)
WCC	Gonzaga	Gonzaga (8), St Mary’s (16)
Mt West	Nevada vs Colorado St			Nevada (31), Colorado St (66)
MVC	Wichita St	Wichita St (29)		Illinois St (32)
Conf USA	Middle Tennessee vs Marshall			Middle Tennessee (36), Marshall (108)
America East	Vermont	Vermont (49)
Atlantic Sun	Florida Gulf Coast	Florida Gulf Coast (86)
Big Sky	North Dakota vs Weber St			North Dakota (150), Weber St (180)
Big South	Winthrop	Winthrop (70)
Big West	Cal-Irvine vs Cal-Davis			Cal-Irvine (124), Cal-Davis (181)
Colonial	UNC Wilmington	UNC Wilmington (27)		Charleston (61)
Horizon	Northern Kentucky	Northern Kentucky (88)
Ivy	Princeton vs Penn, Harvard vs Yale			Princeton (51), Harvard (133), Yale (142), Penn (197)
MAAC	Iona	Iona (90)		Monmouth (47)
MAC	Akron vs Kent St			Akron(53),  Kent St (154)
MEAC	NC Central vs Norfolk St			NC Central (208), Norfolk St (240)
Northeast	Mt St Mary’s	Mt St Mary’s (148)
OVC	Jacksonville St	Jacksonville St (151)		Belmont(60)
Patriot	Bucknell	Bucknell (62)
Southern	East Tennessee St	East Tennessee St (56)
Southland	New Orleans vs Texas A&M – CC			New Orleans (168), Texas A&M-CC (147)
Summit	South Dakota St	South Dakota St (152)
Sun Belt	Texas-Arlington vs Texas St, Georgia St vs Troy			Texas-Arlington (37), Georgia St(98), Troy (174), Texas St (192)
SWAC	Texas Southern vs Alcorn St			Texas Southern(115), Alcorn St(228)
WAC	CSU Bakersfield vs New Mexico St			CSU Bakersfield (77), New Mexico St (64)

Have to admit that my Boilers losing took a little bit of fun out of the weekend – but how can you be too mad when they lose in overtime to a team that two days ago crashed on a plane.

Wisconsin and Iowa State helped out the bubble by taking out Indiana and TCU – likely ending their last ditch runs to take their conference’s bids.

However, Dayton losing to Davidson in the Atlantic 10 opens the door up for a bid stealer in their conference.

Alabama upset South Carolina and Vanderbilt took out Florida for the third time this season to make the SEC semi-finals.

Another of the favorites for the top seeds went down as North Carolina was beaten by a Duke team that looks like it is finally living up to its pre-season potential, while Villanova needed a late basket by Josh Hart to hold off Seton Hall.

And there are still games to be played – included two pretty great matchups for the Pac 12 semi-finals.

Another reason to stop the “games to watch” articles is that I need to start on my horrible bracketology picks.   One of these years, I will figure the seeding piece of this out.   And I am so biased at this point, I don’t know that I can correctly predict what the committee does.

But here are some of my thoughts (although I reserve the right to backtrack on some of these statements after I get a chance to look more thoroughly at team’s profiles).

I am tired of how some of the media bracketologists are saying that Syracuse are still in the field.

• Teams with much better RPIs were left out because they had a 200+ non-conference strength of schedule (they are 221).
• They played three non-conference games away from home – losing the only true road game to Wisconsin by 17, and their two neutral court games by 14 to South Carolina and 2 to Connecticut.
• They lost to St. John’s and Georgetown at home.
• Their only road wins are to North Carolina State (who fired their coach) and Clemson (who lost to everyone in the last minute).
• Boston College only won two games in the ACC this year – one of them was by 15 points against Syracuse.
• Their RPI is currently 84 – I get that it is not the best metric, but I only need 36 at large teams.
• I get that they beat Duke, Virginia and Florida State.  But Indiana beat Kansas and North Carolina (two of the likely #1 seeds) and has a slightly better RPI – 79, and the experts say the Hoosiers need to get to the Big 10 final to have a chance.  I agree with the assessment on Indiana – which is why it baffles me that Syracuse would be in after going one and done in the ACC tourney.

OK – I got that off my chest – I feel better now.    Other bubble thoughts

• The Big 10 bubble just got confusing – Illinois and Iowa probably played their way out of the tournament by both losing by 20+ points.   But did Indiana somehow put themselves back into bubble consideration by beating Iowa?    I will think about it more after they play Wisconsin.
• ACC bubble teams didn’t really help themselves either – Wake Forest also lost their quarterfinal game on Wednesday
• They might not have been the most impressive wins – but Pac 12 bubble teams USC and Cal keep winning their conference tourney games (although USC might have too much in front of them tonight with UCLA).
• TCU managed to upset #1 Kansas – could they end up being a bid stealer with two more victories in the Big 12.
• Congratulations to Xavier – they needed to show they could beat someone other than DePaul since they lost one of their stars to injury.   They did that today against Butler – a team who will be in the field.   Xavier looks like they punched their ticket to the dance.

At this point, I am going to stop the games to watch perspective – they are all great.

• How can you not get excited about watching Duke and UNC play for a third time?
• You know the Lunatic is excited that Purdue’s Big Ten tournament starts tomorrow against Michigan!!!
• Locally, VCU opens up their Atlantic 10 championship against George Mason and Richmond takes on the winner of St Louis and George Washington.
• Can Vanderbilt beat Florida for a third time in the SEC?
• Can TCU take the magic they had today in upsetting #1 Kansas and continue an improbable run to the tourney by taking out red-hot #23 Iowa State?
• Assuming the favorites win in tonight’s Pac 12 quarterfinals, we will get to watch Arizona play UCLA in an awesome semi-final game
• Can Indiana regain some of its magic from the start of the season and take out of Wisconsin
• With Kansas’ loss, it appears the door is open for Villanova to take the #1 overall seed – can they continue their dominance in the Big East by beating Seton Hall
• Will any bubble teams like Cal or Rhode Island step up with big victories?
• Will the small conference champions like Middle Tennessee State and Nevada continue to win in their conference tournament and take their destiny out of the hands of the selection committee?

So many great games to watch!!!!   Such a fun time of year!!!!

Sometimes life gives you a reminder about what is important.    As waiting for the final ACC game of the night to start, I heard this story.

The plane carrying Michigan’s team to DC was involved in an accident on Wednesday – where the plane was attempting to take-off in high winds, had to abort the takeoff, and slid off the runaway.   The plane has a decent amount of damage but all the 109 passengers and 7 crew members were able to evacuate safely.

The team will try to head to DC again tomorrow morning, which will leave them very little time to get to their Noon EST tip-off against Illinois – and that is assuming the weather cooperates this time to let them take-off.   It sounded from the ESPN report like the Big 10 is having to think about contingency plans in the case that Michigan can not get there in time – although the plan is obviously for the game to go on as planned at noon.

Here was one of the best quotes I saw about this – from Coach John Beilien (in the Detroit Free Press story on the event).

“It puts so much in perspective right now,” Beilein told Dave LewAllen of WXYZ-TV at the airport in a video posted on twitter.  “Everybody’s safe. We’ve got a few people banged up a little bit, a few cuts, a few bruises, but other than that, everybody’s healthy. And it could have been much worse. The way the flight attendants, the pilots, the student-athletes, everybody, the students, the staff, everybody conducted themselves, it was incredible. We were off that plane, going down those chutes, going out on the wing, getting out of there in a minute. Seemed like everybody got off that plane (fast.) Everybody was really disciplined and a lot of poise.”

It does put things into perspective.   Regardless of what happens tomorrow, the Michigan basketball team has already won – because everyone is safe and healthy.  Here are hopes for much safer travel for these players tomorrow and good luck in their game against Illinois.

 

 

Game of the day

West Coast Championship – #4 Gonzaga (31-1) vs #19 St. Mary’s (28-3) – This might be the easiest pick of the week.   Mid-major conference championship between two ranked teams with only 4 losses combined.   Gonzaga is responsible for 2 of those 4 losses as the swept St. Mary’s this year.   But St. Mary’s is coming off a 31 point destruction of BYU – the team that ruined Gonzaga’s unbeaten season, so they have to be coming into this game confident.   Should be a great game

Conference Championships:

• Northeast – #1 Mt St Mary’s (18-15) vs #4 St Francis (PA) (16-15) – Mt St Mary’s struggled in the non-conference season, but went 14-4 in conference to take the regular season title.
• Summit – #3 Omaha (18-13) vs #4 South Dakota State (17-16) – South Dakota St took out regular season champs South Dakota to give them a chance against Omaha to head to the dance.
• Horizon – #4 Northern Kentucky (23-10) vs #10 Milwaukee (11-23) – This has been a wild conference tournament that saw 3 of the 4 semi-finalists have losing records.   Milwaukee only won 4 of 18 games in conference, but they now find themselves 1 victory away from the NCAAs after upsetting Detroit, regular-season co-champs Valparaiso, and UIC.  Northern Kentucky was the only one of the top 4 seeds who didn’t lose in the quarter-finals, and now find themselves the favorites in a conference tournament that has not necessarily been the best position.

Other Games of Interest:

•  Wake Forest (19-12) vs Boston College (9-23) – the ACC 1st round games have started – other than enjoying fun ACC games, these are important as Wake Forest (as well as Clemson, Georgia Tech or Pitt) can’t afford a loss in the 1st round if they want to make a late run into the tournament.   Wake gets the nod because they might only need to win this game, while the others definitely need to go deep to get in consideration.

Enjoy the games!!!!