There is no stop to Championship Week. Tuesday saw the drama from Monday night, and said “I can do better”. To be fair, Tuesday also has the honor of awarding 6 more conference championships. But there has been a little bit of everything.

The Atlantic Sun tournament decided to create the script that Hollywood couldn’t write. On Saturday, the semi-finals saw the top 4 teams tip off in two great games. The top seed from the West Division, Jacksonville State ended up losing by 3 to their cross-town rivals Jacksonville. And then, the top seed in the East, Liberty lost by 3 points to Bellarmine, who is just in their second year in transitioning to Division I. Bringing us to tonight, as newcomer Bellarmine won the Atlantic Sun championship 77-72 over Jacksonville. However, because the Knights are still in their transition period, they are ineligible for the NCAA Tournament. So, regular season champion Jacksonville State managed to win the Atlantic Sun’s bid three days after losing in the semi-finals.

You had the snoozer game in the Northeast Conference final, as Bryant jumped out to a 25-4 lead to start the game against Wagner, and never looked back on their way to a 27 point victory.

Maybe you like what happened in the Colonial Conference, where the Delaware Blue Hens managed to upset regular-season co-champs Towson yesterday in the semi-finals, and turned around tonight to upset the other regular-season co-champs UNC-Wilmington by 4 points.

Need your late game drama. The Horizon Conference has you covered. Down 2 points, Northern Kentucky’s Marques Warrick hit a three-pointer to take the lead with 22 seconds. Then, Wright State’s Trey Calvin came right back down the court, drives to the free-throw line, and calmly drains the game-winning jumper with 10 seconds left.

You have the power-house mid-major game happening right now, as the West Coast Conference Championship sees #1 Gonzaga playing against #17 St. Mary’s. Right now, the top team in the country has an 8 point lead in their effort to get revenge from the last time these two teams met. Unlike in other years, the bubble can rest easier knowing that regardless of who wins, the bubble will not be shrinking – since both teams are likely already in the Field of 68.

And then you have the classic mid-major story in the Summit Conference. In this story, you have South Dakota State. The Jackrabbits went 29-4 so far this year, and went an undefeated 18-0 in conference play (they were 1 of only 2 teams this year to be undefeated in conference play – Murray State swept through the Ohio Valley). They have a respectable NET ranking of 64th, but because they have beaten no teams in the top Quadrant, they likely need to win one more time. And they are in a battle with 2nd place North Dakota State, with the Jackrabbits leading by 6 with 10 minutes to play.

So much going on – it is such a special time of the year. As Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Don’t miss Championship Week – there are two great championship finals going on right now!!!! And there will be more all week long.

Maybe it is that I am just getting old. Maybe I still haven’t recovered from traveling to Charlotte to watch Katie play in her first rugby games. Maybe I was just enjoying getting the chance to watch Charlie play goalie in a scrimmage game for his high school’s JV team tonight. I can make lots of excuses, but I am terribly behind with my ranting.

I found myself writing my normal intro email where I wanted to talk a little about Coach K’s final game, and I almost had to change my topic completely. This is because as I was writing that email last night to all of you to announce this year’s Stomp the Lunatic contest, I had my Python code in the background pulling the box scores that I was missing from the weekend, and had the Southern Conference championship playing in the background.

I looked up from my typing to watch Furman’s Mike Bothwell bring the ball up the court down three, and finally managed to get free from his defender with just 4 seconds to tie the game at 51 and send the game to overtime. At this point, my typing stopped as I was drawn in. Bothwell from Furman kept hitting shot after shot – looking like he was unstoppable. But Chattanooga kept coming back and tying the game, including a big three pointer by A.J. Caldwell with 27 seconds. But this meant the shot clock was off, and the ball was going back in the hands of Furman’s star. And as he did in regulation, Bothwell managed to drive to the basket and score what looked to be the winning basket with 4 seconds left.

And then, March happened. Chattanooga inbounded the ball into David Jean-Baptiste who charged up the court, barely crossed half-court to get to the Ingles logo on the court, jumped as two Furman players closed in on him, and buried the long three-pointer to send the Mocs to a 64-63 victory. His teammates follow him around the court until they tackle him in celebration – Chattanooga will get to go dancing next week!

And I found myself sitting there frozen. I had already written the first paragraph about Coach K. I spent another 20 minutes debating what to do. I still have to finish loading the box scores. I have to start thinking through my bracketology. So much to do, and so little time. And while I could not let the winningest coach in Division I men’s basketball retire and not give him the respect that he deserves for all he has done for the game, I kept thinking to myself that I should be writing about David Jean-Baptiste and Mike Bothwell, two amazing basketball players that might not even make it to the pros. But on Monday night, they put on the type of show that is what makes March so special.

So, while I am behind, I could not let it go unnoticed. Congratulations to the Chattanooga Mocs on being the Southern Conference tournament champs and earning their ticket to the dance.

This Saturday in Durham, North Carolina, 9,314 of the luckiest people entered Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium to get to witness the final regular season game for the winningest coach in NCAA Men’s Division I history.  Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski was looking to end his 42 years, 1,196 victories and 5 national championships with one more home victory against arch-rival North Carolina.  And there were stretches where it looked like a day of celebration would end perfectly, such as when the Blue Devils scored 14 straight points to come back and take a 9 point lead in the first half.  They kept holding onto that lead until it was 61-56 with 10 ½ minutes left in the game.  But the Tar Heels would not quit.  North Carolina would outscore the Blue Devils by 18 points in that final 10 ½ minutes, and ruined Coach K’s final regular season ending.  An amazing book of history now only has the couple of pages reserved for Coach K’s final ACC Championship and NCAA Championship wait to be written. 

And after that amazing game, ESPN didn’t change over to another ACC, Big 10, Big 12 or SEC game that was waiting to start.  It wasn’t that none of those major conferences were playing, but they had reserved the spot after that heavyweight fight for the Ohio Valley, where Murray State played Morehead State.  Murray State managed to win their 30^th game of the season, holding off the Eagles for a 71-67 victory.  And while many might have been wondering why ESPN would be highlighting a game from the Ohio Valley Conference, the Murray State Racers were celebrating because they were the first team to earn their place in the 2022 NCAA Men’s Championship!!!!  Which can mean only one thing – IT MUST BE MARCH!!!!!!  

And if it is March, it can only mean one more thing – it must be time to STOMP THE LUNATIC!!!!!!! 

That’s right – the Lunatic is back for another month of sleep deprivation, looking through stat sheets in a foolish attempt to show he can predict college basketball games. But we all know how this craziness ends – with a thorough stomping!!!!  So, without any more delays, the 2022 Stomp the Lunatic contest is officially announced!!!!!!! 

The most important part is ready – the website is up and ready to go for another year of bracket picks.   As always, the website will have all of the pages that make the Stomp the Lunatic great – whether it be NCAA results so the statisticians can build predictive models, poorly done bracketology that will show the Lunatic is simply a crazy basketball fan, cheat sheets once the brackets are released for those of us who don’t want to do hours of analysis, and of course, everyone’s favorite rants about the games.   

This year should be a fun year.  Just a couple of weekends ago, a record 7 of the Top 10 teams all lost on the same day for the first time in history.  It should be a wide-open field where there are a large number of teams with the talent to win it all. 

On Monday, March 14^th, I am excited to be joining two long-time supporters of the Stomp the Lunatic contest, Kevin Flippen and Paul Gilman, who run a podcast about sports.  The podcast is called Bumper Night, a spin off to their wildly popular Stories from the Center of the Universe podcast on YouTube.  So, join us at 8 pm EST as we will talk about the bracket and who we think will win it all.  Thanks so much to Kevin and Paul for letting me join them and rant about my favorite sport for an evening. 

Once the committee has announced the 68 teams next Sunday (March 13^th), I will update the site to have the entry form. If you don’t remember the rules (or this email has been forwarded to you), there is a link on the site.  

If you have any questions, feel free to send me an e-mail at thomas@tehodgson.com, just realize I only check at night when I get home from work!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, if you don’t want to get further e-mails about this, please let me know, and I will do my best to remove you from the distribution list – although remember as mentioned up above, organized e-mail lists are not one of my strengths. 

So, do your research, get ready for the Madness to begin, and good luck to everyone in STOMPING THE LUNATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Monday and Tuesday are fun days for the Lunatic – that is because it is mainly many of the one bid conferences getting a chance to play their conference tournament finals before the media moves towards the major conference tournaments.

Today, the 7 pm TV spot highlights the two conference finals tonight. In the Sun Belt, 3rd seed Georgia State is playing 8th seed Louisiana for a chance to make the Big Dance. In the Southern, regular season champ Chattanooga is battling against 2nd seed Furman – both the top teams from the Southern are in the top 80 of the NET Rankings, so possibly might be one of those dangerous 12-14 seeds.

But we also have the semi-finals of the Colonial, Horizon, Summit and West Coast conferences. The big game of course is at 9 pm when #1 Gonzaga goes against San Francisco, as the Dons try to show that they deserve an at-large bid against the top team in the AP poll.

All the games today and tomorrow matter – because with maybe the exception of the West Coast Conference, these game are basically win or go home. Also, with less games going on, it gives the Lunatic a little bit of a chance to catch up on analyses before the season ends this weekend.

Enjoy the games – they should be fun ones!!!

My family has a very busy weekend ahead of us. Katie is playing in her first rugby tournament with the Richmond Strikers, so we are all very excited for her. So, the official email announcement will need to likely wait until Monday.

But once Ruggerfest is over, the Lunatic is back for another month of sleep deprivation, looking through stat sheets in a foolish attempt to show he can predict college basketball games.  This will likely end in a thorough stomping, but it should be a wild and entertaining ride. 

But have no fears, the Website is currently ready for the NCAA Tournament to start. While it is certainly not necessary, the registration link is live for this year’s tournament (that being said, it is typically easier to register when you enter your picks). And I have managed to pull all the box scores through Thursday’s games. The smaller conference tournaments have begun as bubble teams are hoping that teams like Murray State and Gonzaga don’t let a bid get stolen. And we all get ready – because it is time to watch an amazing month of college basketball. And it is time to Stomp the Lunatic!!!

Well – I guess they are killing my Boilermakers. With three games left, Purdue had control of their destiny of winning the Big 10 Regular Season title. And then there was a last second three pointer by Michigan State over the weekend to give the Spartans a much needed victory after a tough run of losses. But Purdue still had a chance to regain a share of the title. The Boilers fell behind early, fought their way back including an amazing shot with 8 seconds left by Jaden Ivey.

Then, as the Boilers season has seemed to go, Chucky Hepburn came racing down the court, and hit a wild three pointer off the glass to send the Boilers home with another last second loss and give the Badgers a share of the Big Ten title (they will likely clinch it for themselves as all they have to do is beat last place Nebraska for the out-right title).

So, demoralizing for a Lunatic trying to get ready for March. To be 24-6 and knowing that three of your losses happened on baskets in the last 2 seconds (including Rutgers’ miracle half-court buzzer beater earlier in the season). I know that there is still the conference tournament and of course the Big Dance, but still just a little tough.

Anyways, I am still testing out the site links – looks like all the standings links are set up, but I have to test that all the connections to the database work. So, don’t be surprised if you click on one of the 2022 links and find that Dick Vitale or Joe Lunardi are winning the pool (have to make sure when I test that everyone knows it is fake). It will probably take a couple more days, but I should have it set up by the weekend. Not even last second losses can stop the Lunatic from ranting in March.

Hi everyone – I found myself watching games last weekend, and saw the fight that was started in the handshake line at the end of the Michigan / Wisconsin game. And the Lunatic got all riled up – ready to go on one of his rants. I might still at some point.

And then it occurred to me – my desire to go on a rant means the games are starting to mean more and more – we start to get the daily articles about what teams are on the dreaded bubble, teams celebrate amazing victories, and then of course, we have this Saturday when 7 of the top 10 teams in the country lost for the first time in history (#8 Villanova must have been extremely happy that they did not have a game this weekend – they improved their position simply by not playing).

And of course, that means that March is almost here. I am currently working on the website to get it ready for the 2022 Stomp the Lunatic contest. You should be able to still visit past blogs and standings, and remind yourself about how well you did one year. But please don’t register for this year’s tournament just yet. While I test the entry and registration forms, these tables will get deleted a few times to make sure all the scripts behind them are working correctly. I will let everyone know when the site is ready!