The Connecticut Huskies just dominated the first half, ending with Alex Karaban hitting a three pointer at the buzzer to give the top remaining seed a 37-24 lead.

You knew it would be that kind of night when Huskies’ 6’9″ Forward Adama Sanogo, who only hit 17 three pointers all season, hit two three pointers to start the game.  The Hurricanes didn’t have an answer for him in the lane either, as he rolled for 13 points going 5-6 from the field.

But the big story is that the Huskies defense is stopping the explosive Miami offense, as the Hurricanes are only shooting 25% from the field.  The 24 points is the lowest total number of points the Hurricanes have scored all season.

UConn has beaten everyone in the tournament by over 15 points, and they have a 13 minutes lead at halftime.  It just doesn’t look like anything can stop the Huskies.  But as we saw in the first game, teams can come back from double digits, and the Hurricanes have had their own experience doing that as they needed a second half comeback to beat the Texas Longhorns.

Twenty minutes of basketball left to see who will join San Diego State in the championship game!!!

With about 15 minutes left, there was a foul on Aztec’s Micah Parrish.  Everyone started complaining and as that happened, Parrish elbowed Brandon Weatherspoon in the chest, and the Owls’ guard flopped to the ground to get the refs attention.  And while it was a little weak, it certainly deserved a technical foul.  Alijah Martin would hit the two free throws, and then get fouled shooting a three pointer to drain three more free throws.  Florida Atlantic was up 54-40.

But the technical foul seemed to also fire up the Aztecs.  San Diego State continued to cut the lead.  Every time the Aztecs would miss a shot, they would get the rebound, drive to the basket, and seem to get fouled.  It was crazy – really good shooters kept missing free throws and then the Aztecs would get another rebound and cut the lead 1-2 points at a time.  With four and a half minutes, Aguek Arop got a jumper along the baseline and tied the game at 65.

Giancarlo Rosardo would give the Owls back the lead with a fadeaway from the post at four minutes.  Both teams kept playing tough, physical defense, but the Owls would maintain a three point lead off some free throws from Johnell Davis.

But the Aztecs would not go away.  Jaedon LeDee drove to the hoop and laid it in with a minute to cut the lead to 1.  But Owls’ Alijah Martin made a pretty drive down the baseline for a reverse layup with 50 seconds to take a 71-68 lead.  LeDee rushed the ball down the court again, and with 36 seconds hit a jumper to once again cut the lead to 1.

As timeout was called, everyone wondered if the Aztecs would foul and extend the game.  But instead, not only did the Aztecs decide to play defense, they went big, removing both their leading scores in Matt Bradley and Darrion Trammell.  With the shot clock running down, the Owls’ season leading scorer, Johnell Davis drove the lane but had his layup blocked by Aguek Arop and Nathan Mensah comes down with the ball with under 10 seconds to play.

Mensah outlets the ball to Lamont Butler, he takes it to the corner but gets cut-off from going down the baseline to the basket.  With under 2 seconds, Butler reverses back away from the basket and realizing time is running out, puts up a jumper with 0.5 seconds left.  And it hits nothing but net as the clock strikes 0.  San Diego State had not led since 10:34 in the first half.  But as the clock struck zero, the scoreboard showed Aztecs 72, Owls 71.

The Mountain West champions from San Diego State came from 14 points down to win at the buzzer and earn their trip to the championship game on Monday.

What an exciting game – we can only hope that we see something as exciting between the Miami Hurricanes and Connecticut Huskies!

San Diego State jumped out to a 14-5, and then after that, it has been all Florida Atlantic.   Nicholas Boyd hit 2 of his 3 three-pointers in what ignited a 16-3 run to give the Owls a 4 point lead.

Then after Nathan Mensah gave the Aztecs a 24-23 lead, Jalen Gaffney, Bryan Greenlee and Alijah Martin hit three pointers to help the Owls go on another 9-2 run.

Florida Atlantic has been able to find a way to score on the Aztecs impressive defense.  Just remember here is what teams have done against San Diego State in the tournament.

• Charleston (32.1% FG, 20.8% TPG, 29 first half pts, 57 pts)
• Furman (32.0% FG, 23.1% TPG, 25 first half pts, 52 pts)
• Alabama (32.4% FG, 11.1% TPG, 23 first half pts, 64 pts)
• Creighton (40.0% FG, 11.8% TPG, 33 first half pts, 56 pts)

The Owls have scored 40 points, shooting 53.6% from the field and 42.9% from three point range.  They have had a fantastic mix of scoring inside and shooting from outside, with really great ball movement.  And now the Conference USA champion is 20 minutes away if they can hold on to their 7 point lead of playing for their first ever National Championship.  But this has been a game of runs – don’t count the Mountain West champions out.

I remember a few days ago looking through Facebook and seeing a post that was going viral.  It was from Earvin Magic Johnson’s twitter, and gave Iowa’s Caitlin Clark’s this high level of praise.

“What makes Caitlin’s 40-point triple-double so special is the fact so many players never had one, not me, Michael Jordan, or Larry Bird!”

I don’t know if that is true – I assume that Magic knows what he is talking about.  But as the post went viral, many commentators were saying that Clark was the best player in college basketball, both men’s and women’s.

I thought to myself that this is just trying to promote the women’s game – which I totally support.  I also don’t know that I like putting the best designation onto something so hard to describe.  Zach Edey was awarded the best player in men’s basketball and couldn’t even get his team past the first round.  Centers have skills that guards don’t.  Guards have skills that centers don’t.  What is best – towering dunks, deep ranged three pointers, shut-down defense, or amazing passes.

But then I watched both women’s Final Four games last night, and got to watch Caitlin Clark play.  She hit one three-pointer from the March Madness logo.  She would drive down the lane at will and make these beautiful layups against a South Carolina team that was undefeated because they had the best defense in women’s basketball.  She would make these great passes to her teammates leading to baskets.  She did turn the ball over a few more times than one would like – but it was super entertaining.

If you are not doing anything tomorrow at 3:30 pm, you need to turn on the women’s championship game and watch her play.  What she did on Friday night was incredible, and that wasn’t even the game that got praise from one of the best players to ever play basketball.  It should be a great game, LSU has only lost twice all season so they are obviously incredibly talented as well.

If that is not enough to make you believe it, I will take a moment last night.  Charlie had just come down to make some popcorn and asked how the game was going.  And he looked and watched Clark drive to the basket and get a layup.  I said Iowa is winning, but Clark is incredible.  And without missing a beat, Clark comes down the court and hits a three pointer from almost half court.  And Charlie goes, “Dang – that was from the logo”.  I said, “Yeah – she has been doing that all night”.  Charlie even stayed and watched a little more of the game before wanting to go back to his video games – leaving and saying that she was amazing.

People who love the game or have starred in the game like Magic Johnson are going to recognize something special right away.  But you know that someone is special when you can get someone who doesn’t really care about women’s basketball to stop and watch for a while because they realize they are watching something special.

Once again, I know that this will never happen.  But the Lunatic also wants to add games that help evaluate teams.  Instead of allowing more teams into the tournament, lets add a set of games.  The NCAA tried this once and it failed – but it was bound to fail.  It was the bracket busters – it set up one game between the top non-power conference teams.  The idea was that the win would bump up the winner’s profiles.  But the problem was that winning those games just was not enough of a mover.

One problem that I have is what North Texas went through – they never got to play a power conference team.

So, here is my proposal.  We are going to add two weeks to the schedule, with games that will not count against the overall total that a team can play.

There were 100 teams that made the NCAA and NIT.  These teams will get rewarded with a tournament to start the season.  We can have 6 tournaments of 16 teams and one of 4 teams.  The tournament will redo the Sweet 16 teams, the teams that made the Second Round, etc. with one rule – it needs to guarantee that 4 of the teams in the tournament are from conferences outside of the Big 12, Big 10, SEC, ACC, Pac 12 or Big East.  The top 4 non-power conference teams will host the first two rounds where winners play winners and losers play losers – that means everyone gets at least 2 games against what likely will be talented teams (and the non-power teams finally get to play them at home).  Then, the winners of each group of 4 will play at neutral sites that are famous to try to get some excitement (Madison Square Garden, for example).  At a minimum, non-power teams will get two quality opponents, and could get 4.

Then, we will add one week to the season at the end of December / first week of January.  No one can schedule a game during this week because everyone is going to be told where they are playing.  We will take the current NET ranking and use it to create 8 team tournaments – top 8 play each other, 9-16 play each other, etc.  A couple of forced rules.  Each group of 8 has to have at least 2 non-power conference teams.  We likely can’t find enough neutral sites for these, and we want to be able to have tons of fans – so in this case, we will let whoever is the top team in the grouping host the tournament.  It will work just like the holiday tournaments, which will allow everyone to get 3 games against teams considered around the same skill level.  And if you are a non-power conference team near the top of the rankings, you are likely guaranteed to play one game against a power conference team – which can really improve your profile.

We can always simply increase the numbers into the NCAA tournament – but then we need to figure out how that increase doesn’t just end up having all the non-power conference teams playing in the first round.  If you win your conference tournament, you should automatically make the Round of 64.  And if the numbers of the NCAA tournament increase, it has to come with the rule that you have to have a winning record in your conference.  More access should mean more access to the teams who tend to not have a chance to get in.  It should go to a team like Dayton who comes in 2nd place in the Atlantic 10 and gets ignored because they lose in the conference tournament final, not to a power conference team that went 16-16 for the season.

We know this won’t happen.  But could you imagine how fun this would be.  On New Year’s Eve, you would have a tournament that would basically have the top 8 teams at that moment play each other.  It is probably too hard to organize, which is why it won’t happen.  But I think it would solve a lot of the problems for the Selection Committee.

Well – we are 10 minutes away from San Diego State and Florida Atlantic tipping offf.  I am so excited – it is going to be a fun night of basketball.

This will never happen.  But if I was the czar of college basketball, I would have a rule that you can not play in the NCAA tournament if you don’t have a winning record in your conference.  My fear is that other power conference teams would get invites instead, but it should open the door for a few more non-power conference teams to make the tournament.  Wouldn’t it have been fun to see a team like North Texas (2nd place in Conference USA) or Utah Valley (WAC regular season champion) who ended up winning the NIT and losing in the NIT semi-finals get a chance over a struggling power-conference team.

I think the difficulty becomes that some of these conferences are better so it is too be expected a slightly worse conference record.  So, setting the arbitrary rule would be unpopular.  But lets go past what I would do and list out all the teams that had the worst conference records and see how they did.  I will include the conference tournament games – since they are included in my team standings that I put on the site.

• 9 – West Virginia (Big 12 – 8-12) – Lost to Maryland
• 11 – First Four – Mississippi State (SEC – 9-11) – Lost to Pitt
• 8 – Arkansas (SEC – 9-11) – Beat Illinois and Kansas, Lost to UConn.
• 6 – Iowa State (Big 12 – 10-10) – Lost to Pitt
• 6 – TCU (Big 12 – 10-10) – Beat Arizona State, Lost to Gonzaga
• 9 – Illinois (Big 10 – 11-10) – Lost to Arkansas
• 8 – Iowa (Big 10 – 11-10) – Lost to Auburn
• 9 – Auburn (SEC – 10-9) – Beat Iowa, Lost to Houston

The first thing here that fascinates me is that of these 8 teams, only Mississippi State was in the First Four.  Everyone else was safely in.  And two of them were 6 seeds.  Why would a team like Pitt who went 14-6 in the ACC be in the First Four, and a team like West Virginia who went 8-12 in the Big 12 be the 9 seed?  That makes absolutely no sense to me.  Of course, Pitt ended up proving how wrong that was by beating two of the 8 teams on this list.

To be fair to TCU, they were still ranked in the polls at 22nd.  But note both TCU and Iowa State at 10-10 in the Big 12 were ranked ahead of Texas A&M who was 17-4 in the SEC (one of the two conferences with the most tournament teams).

Only Arkansas, TCU, and Auburn won their first round game, and part of that is because Arkansas and Auburn played other teams on the list.  And TCU’s victory was against one of the First Four teams that was in the play-in game.  Only Arkansas had a victory that was significant – when they knocked off #1 seed Kansas.

If you made a rule that if you have a record that isn’t more than 1 game over 500, you can not get an at-large bid unless the polls have you as a Top 25 team, we would be able to open up 7 spots in the dance – and we would have only missed out on Arkansas’ upset.  I’d have to believe if we gave these opportunities to teams like non-power conference teams like North Texas or power conference teams that did better in the standings like Vanderbilt or Clemson, we would be pleasantly surprised.

It doesn’t change much.  I could argue that teams like Vanderbilt and Clemson couldn’t even get through the NIT – so they certainly weren’t going to win the NCAA Tournament.  I am not sure that NIT performance is the fairest thing – several teams end up having a huge let down and get upset in the NIT because they aren’t ready to play.  I am not trying to say that North Texas, Utah Valley, Clemson or Vanderbilt would have won the NCAA Tournament if given the chance.

But I do think two things.  The seeding matters – if you can’t have a winning record in your conference, you certainly should not be an 8 or 9 seed over a 14-6 power conference team.  And I think having a few more spots for a team like North Texas would benefit the tournament.

I normally try to do this article earlier, but I somehow fell behind with all my blogging.  I am going to blame Purdue’s dismal performance.  But I have 3 1/2 hours until the Final Four begins, and I have already put in my handicapping, so it is time to catch up on my standard yearly entries into the blog.  I will also try to do my blog that grades the conferences.

To be fair, I am going to provide some initial feedback and then spend the rest of these articles breaking my own feedback.  Just calling out my own double standard before I get started.  But these articles have to have some criticism in them, and typically, that criticism happens using after the fact information – which is unfair.

At the end of the day, I can’t really complain about what the committee did.  It has been a fun wide-open tournament, and this is one of the best parts of this whole process – it is really almost impossible to mess up the tournament by the selection committee.  Each conference guarantees one team to represent them, the committee takes most of the teams remaining that are consensus top teams – which you can tell whether you use statistical rankings or the polls.

Lets start this with I think the Selection Committee did a very good, non-controversial job.  I (and many other real bracketologists) almost predicted the bracket, so it is hard to complain at what they did.  From my prediction, they left out Rutgers (who breaks one of my rules that I will state later, so I am good with), they added Nevada (who is a non-power conference team that I support making more spots available too), and I got 66 of the teams within 1 seed of where the committee placed them.  But I need to say this – I don’t create a bracket that is my feeling on the 68 best teams, I create a bracket that I think the Selection Committee will select.  And so, some of my feedback will go there.

As a Purdue fan, I am going to start with this statement.  I hate it when a top team loses how it is said that they should have never been that seed.  The selection committee got the top 4 seeds right – Alabama, Houston, Kansas and Purdue.  Yes – they all lost early.  Purdue lost a game they never should have lost.  But that doesn’t mean that they were not deserving of a 1 seed.  If you look at the polls, the 61 pollsters of the AP poll had Purdue as the #3 team in the country.  If you look at the Coaches Poll, the 32 voters had Purdue as the #3 team in the country.  So, if the Selection Committee had been the 93 pollsters, Purdue would have been a 1 seed.  If you go to the Bracket Matrix, my quick count had 229 bracketologists.  Only 12 of them did not rank the Boilers as a 1 seed.  Purdue clearly had a flaw in how they play.  But to say another team deserved the 1 seed means that you were able to look into the future.  Now, if you want to say that Purdue is the biggest choke artist of college basketball, I won’t be able to argue with you.

Now that I have said that, I am going to probably use tournament results later to state what I would like to change.  I know things won’t change, but as a crazy blogger, I have to rant about something.

My biggest complaint ties to two things.  I feel that conference records have to matter more than they do, and that the committee uses the non-conference strength of schedule to punish teams.

I like the sentiment that all the games matter equally.  I even agree with that statement.  But it is hard enough comparing two teams from different conferences who have no opponents who were the same.  While conferences do have unbalanced schedules, they can still be evaluated much more fairly.  The SEC is the best example of this, and is the place where I think the poorest seeding mistake was made.

Lets look at the top of the SEC standings:

• 1) Alabama (16-2, 31-6, 1 AP, 2 Coaches, 2 NET)
• 2) Texas A&M (15-3, 25-10, 17 AP, 17 Coaches, 19 NET)
• 3) Kentucky (12-6, 22-12, 28 AP, 27 Coaches, 26 NET)
• 4T) Missouri (11-7, 25-10, 23 AP, 24 Coaches, 42 NET)
• 4T) Tennessee (11-7, 25-11, 20 AP, 21 Coaches, 4 NET)
• 4T) Vanderbilt (11-7, 22-15, NR in polls, 81 NET)

Obviously, Vanderbilt didn’t make the tournament – I actually think that is a shame despite their NET ranking being awful.  Because they still finished 3 games in the standings ahead of Arkansas and Mississippi State.  At some point, I will need to look deeper into that, but for now, lets focus on the easier argument, Texas A&M.

Based on the published S-curve, the committee made Tennessee (14) a 4 seed, Kentucky (23) a 6 seed, Texas A&M (25) a 7 seed, and Missouri (27) a 7 seed.  The Aggies beat Tennessee and finished 4 games ahead in the standings.  You could say that they were punished for non-conference losses to teams like Murray State and Wofford.  But each of these teams had a blemish (maybe not as bad as those), but the Aggies also won the games in the conference that these other teams did not.  They also made it all the way to the SEC championship game (which these other teams did not).  The polls and NET agreed that Texas A&M should be a 5 seed.  But instead a non-ranked team in Kentucky got put in front of them.

Maybe it was because of the bad losses, but I suspect it was more because of the non-conference strength of schedule (although the Big 12 schools didn’t get penalized so maybe it was the bad losses).  Texas A&M had a NET NC SOS of 248.  From a quick scan, the only at-large teams with a worse NC SOS were Kansas State (310), TCU (292), Northwestern (295), Penn State (278) and Providence (289).

But when you look at the schedule closer, the Aggies played a road game at Memphis, a neutral court game against Boise State and Colorado, a road game against DePaul, and a home game against Oregon State.  Yes, DePaul, Colorado and Oregon State might not be the best from the power conferences, but how many teams played 3 of them in non-conference.  And then add two non-power conference teams that made the tournament.  Lets take Boise State to compare – they played Colorado, Washington State (and of course, Texas A&M) – so 3 power conference schools – all on neutral courts.  None of their other opponents out of conference made the tournament (so certainly no one like Memphis or Boise State).  Their NC SOS was 135th.  So, I would argue that the Aggies played 2 more tougher teams, and ended up with a ranking 113 teams worse.  If you play a team that really stinks, it crushes your ranking – which is a shame because the committee uses that as a reason to hold teams back (ask Rutgers and Clemson who both had NC SOS > 300).

I struggle that a 25-11 team that went 11-7 in conference gets a 4 seed, and a 25-10 team that went 15-3 in the same conference gets a 7 seed, especially when both the polls both ranked the 7 seed team higher than the 4 seed.  I think this is really the only place the committee made a huge seeding mistake.

In the next post, I will go deeper into what I would change – and conference record is involved (along with me being hypocritical and using tournament results).

 

Wow – well that shows how much the Lunatic experts know.  Or maybe we are the jinxes.  Hard to say if it is just the Lunatic who crushes team’s souls or his entire family – guess we will find out better tomorrow where the Lunatic tended to be in the minority on his picks.

If you had said before the games started that one SEC team school would be playing in the National Championship, everyone would have figured #1 South Carolina would be playing #1 Virginia Tech.  But that is not what happened.

In the early game, the Hokies looked like they had things under control with a 8 point lead.  Then, the LSU Tigers came out and blitzed the Hokies in the 4th quarter, outscoring Virginia Tech 29-13 in the last quarter.  Alexis Morris scored 27 points and Angel Reese added 24 points as LSU advanced to their first NCAA championship game.

In the late game, the women’s basketball player of the year showed why she won that award, as Iowa’s Caitlin Clark scored 41 points against the #1 team in the country, hitting three pointers from everywhere.  ESPN just said that Clark either scored or assisted on 75% of Iowa’s baskets.  When she wasn’t draining three pointers, she was passing the ball to her teammates – especially Monika Czinano who added 18 points for the Hawkeyes.

Clark would drill 4 clutch free throws to end the game and end South Carolina’s 42 game winning streak, and the defending champions repeat bid would be cut short as the Hawkeyes also advance to their first NCAA championship game.  So, the women’s championship will see a first time winner as Iowa plays LSU on Sunday – congratulations to the Tigers and Hawkeyes.

It is Final 4 Weekend!!!!  And so the Lunatic has gone and got its experts to give you a preview and analysis of the Final 4 – you can not find this expertise anywhere other than here on the Stomp the Lunatic Blog.

Before we get started, Charlie suggested that we preview both the women’s and the men’s tournament – and the panel agreed, the women deserve their time as well!!!

WOMEN’S FINAL 4

#1 Virginia Tech (31-4) vs #3 LSU (32-2)

CRAZED LUNATIC – Virginia Tech – LSU is led by Angel Reese in the paint, while Tech is led by their center Elizabeth Kitley, so should be a great matchup to watch.  Have to go with the Hokies!

MRS LUNATIC – Virginia Tech – Gotta root for the Hokies

CHARLIE – Virginia Tech – Because they are in Virginia

KATIE – Virginia Tech – no comment

 

#1 South Carolina (36-0) vs #2 Iowa (30-6)

CRAZED LUNATIC – South Carolina – this is the best team in women’s college basketball against the best player in women’s college basketball.   Caitlin Clark from Iowa is such an amazing player, but will she be able to score on Aliyah Boston and the sufficating defense of South Carolina.

MRS LUNATIC – South Carolina – respect the streak

CHARLIE – Iowa – just kidding.  Take South Carolina – you have to be realistic

KATIE – Iowa – love an upset

 

#5 San Diego State (31-6) vs #9 Florida Atlantic (35-3)

CRAZED LUNATIC – San Diego State – FAU has had an amazing season, and they are the more balanced team.  It would be great to watch them continue to win.  But I have to pick San Diego State – after watching their defense completely shut down Alabama, I find it hard to believe that FAU will be able to score on them.  If the Aztecs control the pace of the game, the Aztecs likely will win the game.

MRS LUNATIC – Florida Atlantic – Go Owls!!!  Hoot! Hoot!

CHARLIE – Florida Atlantic – because Purdue should be there and so any team that beat the team that beat Purdue should win.

KATIE – Florida Atlantic – no comment other than why are you making me do this.

 

#4 Connecticut (29-8) vs #5 Miami FL (29-7)

CRAZED LUNATIC – Miami – Connecticut looks like the most dominant team of the tournament.  None of their games have been close.  But I suspect that the ACC regular season champion is going to put up a lot more formidable challenge.  Not to mention that UConn is the last remaining team to not win their conference’s regular season title or tournament title.  But I have an ulterior reason here.  This tournament has been pure chaos, and full of things that just don’t happen.  A five seed has never won the tournament.  And the last remaining team that meets the KenPom statistics history is UConn.  As anyone who is supposed to win actually succeed in this tournament.  Take the upset.

MRS LUNATIC – Miami – but only because they are playing UConn.

CHARLIE – UConn – I really hate UConn, but they are better than Miami

KATIE – Neither – I hate them both.  Lunatic reminds Katie that she has to pick someone.  In a sad voice, Katie picks UConn.

WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP

CRAZED LUNATIC – South Carolina vs Virginia Tech – I have to pick South Carolina – they are on a mission to become the 10th team to go undefeated in women’s basketball and the 4th program to win back-to-back championships.

MRS LUNATIC – South Carolina vs. Virginia Tech – I think it will be South Carolina because I just don’t think that they can be stopped.

CHARLIE – South Carolina vs Virginia Tech – Gamecocks – I don’t know about basketball but I know they have been always good.

KATIE – Iowa vs Virginia Tech – Virginia Tech – because you have to root for the home team.

 

MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP

CRAZED LUNATIC – San Diego State vs Miami – I want to pull the trigger on San Diego State.  I have already made it that a 5 seed has to win, but wouldn’t it be cool if that was a Mountain West team.  But I actually think Miami has played the best this tournament.  The Midwest Region was the one that held form the best, and the Hurricanes beat #4 Indiana by 16, #1 Houston by 14 and #2 Texas by 7 in an exciting comeback victory.  If they get past UConn, I have to pick them to go on to win the championship.

MRS LUNATIC – Florida Atlantic vs Miami – Can I pick Purdue or Gonzaga.  How did I end up with an all-Florida final.  I will pick Florida Atlantic – Go Owls!!! Hoot!  Hoot!

CHARLIE – Florida Atlantic vs UConn – Florida Atlantic – I really don’t like UConn and Purdue should be there, so we will continue with that logic.

KATIE – Florida Atlantic vs UConn – Florida Atlantic – thank God were done this.

The Lunatic might change his mind as he handicaps the games against the spread, but in order to meet Charlie’s desire to preview the women’s game (since the VT / LSU game has already started), I will go with what I want to see, a 5 seed finally winning the tournament.

There you go – expert analysis as only you can get from the Stomp the Lunatic Blog!!!!  Enjoy the games!!!

Well – I don’t necessarily believe that.  But what the Conference USA teams have done so far is amazing, and I don’t remember something like this happening ever – although it would have to happen to a non-power conference.  Basically, the power conferences have too many teams in the tournament, and thus, they can not achieve what Conference USA has done.

Conference USA had 5 teams make the post-season.  Only one of them, Florida Atlantic, the regular season and tournament champion, got invited to the Big Dance.  The 2nd and 3rd place teams in the conference, North Texas and UAB were invited to play in the NIT.  It looked like the 4th place team, Middle Tennessee State, did not get in to a tournament (I would suspect they did not get an invite, but it is possible they turned down the CBI).  Charlotte and Rice did end up playing in the CBI.

Rice managed to win a game against Duquesne before losing in the CBI quarterfinals to Southern Utah.  But Charlotte ended up winning the CBI championship by beating Western Carolina, Milwaukee, Radford and Eastern Kentucky.

North Texas (24-7 with a NET ranking of 38) and UAB (24-9 with a NET ranking of 57) both were left out by the Selection Committee.  North Texas ended up with the frustrating statistic of being the best ranked team in the NET ranking not to get into the tournament.  North Texas is a victim of the classic good small conference team.  They were not able to schedule a single power conference team this season, so their only non-conference game against a tourney-bound team was a bad road loss to St. Mary’s in their second game of the season, so their best wins were the 2 wins against UAB.  If this was their choice, then heading to the NIT feels fair – but many times, power conference teams don’t want to schedule a team who is still being recognized for their 2021 tournament victory against Purdue.  No one wants to schedule the small school who can beat you.

Well – all North Texas has done in the NIT is beat Alcorn State (SWAC regular season champion), Sam Houston State (2nd place in the WAC), Oklahoma State from the Big 12, and Wisconsin from the Big 10 to play tomorrow night in the NIT championship.

UAB was lucky enough to play a few more power conference teams – they managed to beat South Carolina and Georgia, while losing on the road to West Virginia.  The Blazers were also one of the three teams to beat Conf USA champion Florida Atlantic.  But with a NET ranking of 57

Well – all UAB did was beat Southern Miss (the Sun Belt regular season champion), Morehead State (the OVC regular season champion), Vanderbilt from the SEC, and Utah Valley (the WAC regular season champion) to earn the opportunity to play North Texas for a 4th time this season – this time for the NIT championship.

And of course, Florida Atlantic managed to knock off Memphis (American conf tourney champ), Fairleigh Dickinson (NEC auto-bid), 4th seeded Tennessee, and 3rd seeded Kansas State and are now 35-3 as they make their way to Houston for the Final Four.

So while I understand that they are not all playing NCAA Tournament teams, so far in March, the 5 Conference USA teams that made the post-season are currently 18-1, won the CBI championship, beat 4 regular season champions from other conferences in the NIT, beat a Big 10, SEC and Big 12 team in the NIT, will claim the NIT championship on Thursday, and will play in the Final 4 on Saturday.

Normally, only the smaller conferences get invited to the CBI, so I suspect it has never happened.  But right now, Conference USA has the possibility of sweeping all 3 post-season tournaments.  What an amazing achievement that would be!!!!

No matter what happens in the final 4 men’s basketball games in the season, Conference USA deserves a ton of respect for what they have done this March.