It is one of the things that I hate about sports. If you have any success, you suddenly expect it every year. And if you don’t get it, everyone wants you to fire the coach.

Immediately after losing to VCU, the stories calling for Davis to be fired started. Tonight, the fans and media got their wish. So lets look at how bad of a coach Davis is.

In five seasons, he went 125-54, won an ACC regular season championship, led them to the NCAA tournament in 4 of the 5 seasons including a NCAA Sweet 16 in 2024 and the NCAA championship game in 2022. He never had a losing record in the ACC, and the year they didn’t go to the tournament was their worst record at 20-13.

This year, they were ranked 11th in the country at 17-4 when they lost leading scoring Caleb Wilson to a bone fracture in his left hand and center Henri Veesaar to a lower back injury. Veesaar would eventually make it back on the court, but Wilson’s season was over, and the Tar Heels stumbled down the stretch.

And then of course, they lose a 19 point lead to VCU and his career at North Carolina is over.

While there are certainly some exceptions, most teams can’t lose a player who averages 19.8 points per game and continue to contend for a national championship. But apparently, that is the expectation at North Carolina.

We complain that Cinderella is dead because of NIL and the transfer portal. But when Cinderella does pull off an upset, that is the point that you fire your coach.

I don’t know the exact number because this was from 2025, but the number of teams that have won more games from 2020-2025 than UNC was 12 (with 3 others tied with them). I will have to do some more research when it isn’t so late – but most schools don’t have the success that Davis had with UNC.

You can say – but North Carolina is different. That might be true. But as I have written in past years, Indiana fired their coach because they weren’t making enough Final Fours. Since that decision, this is now the 8th year out of 10 that Indiana has missed the NCAA Tournament.

The Tar Heels have lots of resources, so maybe they will get a star coach who will take them to the promised land. But they also certainly could fall apart……

It was probably good that the late games were not as interesting – both UConn and Alabama ran away to finish off the 16 teams that will advance to next Thursday and Friday.

I will probably have more to blog about it over the upcoming week, but since it is late, we will simply congratulate the leaders!

Matt Reilly is our leader in both pools – he got 14 of the Sweet 16 teams correct to take the lead.

In the Standard Pool, he is followed by a 6 way tie for 2nd between Joe Chapman, Mary-Rian Bradley, Joseph Laucius, Al Lester, Bo Luy and his other bracket at 530. Just 40 points behind in a tie for 8th are Heath Lindvall, both of Alan Miller’s brackets, Eric Morton, David Caldwell, Sam Franklin, Rob Bradley, Jennifer Ogle, Mark Schumaker, Dan Fischer, Kennedy Urban, and Earl McKnight.

In the Upset Pool, our top 5 places are the following – Matt leads at 234 points, Lochlan Middlebrook is in 2nd at 213 points, Tony Wilson is in 3rd at 211 points, Al Lester is in 4th at 204 points, and Mark Walsh is in 5th at 203 points.

If you were one of the people who picked Florida and had to tear your bracket up thanks to the Iowa Hawkeyes hitting a three pointer from the corner with 4 seconds left, don’t despair. That is because the Second Chance Pool is ready and available – simply go to the Login link and it will take you to the entry form.

Everyone deserves a second chance!!!! And in the Stomp the Lunatic contest, this second chance is free – it is already included in your entry fees. So, there is no reason to miss out on taking advantage of your second chance.

Good luck to everyone in continuing to Stomp the Lunatic!!!!

Some will try to argue that Texas or Iowa are Cinderellas, being an 11 seed and 9 seed. But the Lunatic feels that you can’t be from a power conference and be a Cinderella. They certainly deserve tons of credit for pulling off upsets to get to the Sweet 16. But the Lunatic holds the term Cinderella in reserve for the mid-major teams that don’t have the same financial resources that schools from the SEC and Big 10 have.

After St. Louis, VCU and High Point went down (and Gonzaga – although it is hard to call a 3 seed Cinderella), the last mid-major standing was #9 seed Utah State. And when the Arizona Wildcats took an 18 point lead with 15 minutes to play, it certainly looked like Cinderella’s magic was done.

But Utah State would make a run – they would cut the lead all the way down to 4 points with 6 1/2 to play when Drake Allen hit a three-pointer.

With a little over 2 minutes left and Arizona draining the shot clock, they got the ball into Brayden Burries in the corner. But Utah State’s defender closed out great and forced Burries to take the ball back out to the three point line. He kept dribbling further and further away from the basket trying to get just a little bit of space, and finally launched the ball high in the air from an NBA three-point range, and the ball goes in to give the Wildcats a 9 point lead.

Utah State would get a few chances from three-point range to try to cut the lead, but none of them would go in. Arizona advances to the Sweet 16, and the last mid-major team has fallen.

The early evening of basketball is keeping the Lunatic busy. I finish the blog of one game that is exciting, and the next one then tries to top it. It once again proves that the Lunatic can not handicap games.

I mentioned in my handicapping blog that I had seen this before. I mentioned how while Duke blows out teams, TCU had not been beating by double digits very often and then the Blue Devils go on a 30-10. Florida blows teams out, and so even though Iowa has experience against tough teams, expect Florida to run away like Duke did.

Except Iowa came to play – the Hawkeyes ruled the first half and took a 2 point lead into halftime. And then the Hawkeyes came out of the locker room on fire. 6 minutes into the half, Cooper Koch hit a three pointer to force the Gators to call timeout as Iowa suddenly had a 12 point lead.

The Gators used the timeout well – as they started their spark. And around the 7 minute mark, Isaiah Brown and Alex Condon hit back-to-back dunks to give the Gators a 60-58 lead. One had to figure that this was when the defending champions would run away.

Except they didn’t. With about 4 minutes, Iowa’s Cooper Koch hit a three-pointer to give the Hawkeyes a lead. But the Gators would play good defense, get some free throws and have Alex Condon make a layup to give Florida a 3 point lead. With about 2 minutes left, Tavion Banks would cut the lead down to 1 with a nice dunk, only to have the Gators come right back down the court and get a layup from Xaivian Lee.

After running the shot clock down, Florida’s Boogie Fland drove the lane and looked like the Iowa defender hit the ball out of his hands. But Iowa challenged the call, and it was ruled that the ball was last off of Fland. Iowa took advantage of it, by getting the ball to their star, Bennett Stirtz – who drove to the lane and hit a jumper to cut the lead back to 1.

Florida tried to take some time off the clock, but they ended up having to take a long three-pointer, which Thomas Haugh missed, and suddenly, Iowa had a chance to take the lead. Bennett Stirtz drove the lane, was defended well, and Stirtz threw up a wild shot in the lane that missed with 11 seconds. Isaiah Brown would get the defensive rebound and was immediately fouled.

But Brown missed the first free throw. After hitting the second one, Florida called time out to try to set up their defense with a 2 point lead.

Iowa made a nice pass in to Stirtz who caught the ball already at full speed heading down the court, and it looked like he would drive all the way down the court. But once he got near the three-point line, he passed the ball into the corner to Alvaro Folgueiras, who took a step back to make sure both feet were behind the three-point line, and drilled the shot to give the Hawkeyes a one-point lead with 4.5 seconds left.

Xaivian Lee would get the ball on a full sprint and drove all the way down the court with Kael Combs trying to stay in front of him. As Lee got to the basket, Alvaro Folgueiras doubled and both him and Combs jumped to block Lee’s layup. Realizing he had no chance to make it, Lee tried to pass it to Thomas Haugh since that was the man that Folgueiras left to try to block the shot. But the ball hit Haugh’s feet as the buzzer went off. Even if Haugh was able to catch the wild pass, there would have been no time to get a shot off.

And in a tournament where the favorites seem to be advancing, the first #1 team falls in the Round of 32 as the #9 seed Iowa Hawkeyes knock off the defending champions to advance to the Sweet 16 in Houston.

With about 8 1/2 minutes left, Tennessee had a lead and on a loose ball heading out of bounds, JP Estrella boxed out Virginia’s Sam Lewis from trying to save it. Lewis didn’t like the contact and shoved Estrella, which earned him a dead-ball technical foul. Tennessee would hit one of the free throws to extend the lead to 8.

And then the Cavaliers rallied. Over the next 4 minutes, Virginia would go on an 11-3 run, ending with Thijs De Ridder hitting a couple free throws after being fouled trying to get a rebound. The teams would start to go back and forth scoring layups, until the 2 minute mark when De Ridder hit a three-pointer from the wing to give Virginia a 71-70 lead.

On the next play, Nate Ament would get fouled and hit both free throws to reclaim the lead for the Volunteers. Virginia tried to get the ball inside with Dailin Hall, but his turnaround jumper in the lane was too strong.

Virginia played tight defense, and forced a loose ball when Avent got trapped along the wing. The ball got blocked into the air, and Bishop Boswell beat Chance Mallory to the ball, with Mallory knocking them both down to the ground for a foul. But Mallory would only hit one of the free throws so Virginia could still tie or take the lead on the next possession with 46 seconds.

Jacan White made a nice drive to the basket, but missed the reverse layup. The ball got tipped up by Virginia but that also missed and then a Tennessee player tried to slap the ball outside. The ball hits another Volunteer in the head, and then it looked like it barely touched the fingers of a Virginia player before rolling out of bounds.

Virginia challenged it, and to be honest, it looked like the ball never was touched by the Virginia player – he completely whiffed trying to catch it. But the referees ruled the video was not inconclusive evidence and that you could not tell if it touched his finger or not. So Tennessee would get the ball.

VIrginia would be forced to foul Ja’Kobi Gillespie, and he calmly drilled both free throws to make it a two-possession game. Chance Mallory made a nice drive to get to the hoop but once again the layup would miss and get hit out of bounds. This time, Virginia would keep it.

The pass with 15 seconds left went to Jacari White for a wide open three pointer in the corner, but White threw up an air-ball that was rebounded by Gillespie. Once again, Gillespie hit both free throws and iced the game for the Volunteers – they will head to the Sweet 16!!!

St. John’s looked like they were going to comfortably head to the Sweet 16 as they had a 14 point lead with 8 minutes to play. But nothing in March is easy.

Over the next three minutes, Kohl Rosario and Melvin Counsil Jr hit three pointers and Darryl Peterson hit some free throws to cut the lead to 5 points.

The Jayhawks keep chipping away, and with 2 minutes to play, Darryn Peterson missed a three-pointer, but Flory Bidunga was there to get the offensive rebound and hit the layup to cut the lead to 1.

Desperately needing to stop the run, St. John’s got the ball into Bryce Hopkins on the wing, and he drills a three-pointer to extend the lead back to 4 points, but the Jayhawks were not done.

Tre White would cut the lead to two with a layup, and after the Red Storm drained the shot clock, Zuby Ejofor missed a three pointer to give the Jayhawks a chance to tie or take the lead.

Kansas’ Peterson drove to the basket with 13 seconds and got fouled as he tried to shoot it from the baseline. And he made both free throws to tie the game.

This led to a weird part of the game. The Jayhawks only had two fouls. So, they started to intentionally foul to not allow St. John’s to get the ball across half court. The strategy almost worked as they got the clock all the way down to 3 seconds when they ran out of fouls to give.

St. John’s got the pass into Dylan Darling at the half court circle and he starts driving hard to the basket. He gets all the way down the lane, and throws up a layup right before the buzzer goes off, and the ball hits the backboard perfectly and rolls into the basket for a 67-65 victory for St. John’s.

The Red Storm survive and advance – awaiting for them in Washington, D.C. will be #1 Duke in the Sweet 16.

In the first 7 minutes of the game, Kentucky jumped out to an 18-6 lead. In the remaining 33 minutes of the game, the Cyclones outscored Kentucky by 31 points on their way to a comfortable 82-63 victory.

The Cyclones defense is just scary – Kentucky turned the ball over 20 times. Tamin Lipsey scored 26 points and Milan Momcilovic added 20 points. And they did all this with Joshua Jefferson, their best player, on the bench with an injury.

Iowa State is heading to Chicago – be scared of the Cyclones.

The Lunatic had a lot of nervousness. The Boilers were down 2 at halftime. So, the superstitious fan that I am, I found my Purdue hoodie and put it on over my lucky T-shirt in a sad attempt to send more Purdue vibes to my Boilers.

So, I got even more nervous when CJ Cox drove to the basket and came down with a knee injury. I am really hoping that he is OK. In the first half, it was Cox’s getting hot with 8 points to stop Miami’s run and close the gap from 7 to a 2 point Hurricanes lead at half.

But Fletcher Loyer stayed hot – scoring 24 points in the game, and Trey Kaufman-Renn displayed his toughness with 19 points all in the paint and 9 rebounds. And eventually, the Boilers extended the lead to a comfortable range. Everyone hit their free throws down the stretch, and the Boilers left St. Louis with a 79-69 victory.

So Purdue becomes the 5th Big 10 team to make it to the Sweet 16 – they will be heading out West to San Jose, CA to face Texas. Boiler Up!!!!!

Thank you to my Boilers – the Lunatic can now happily enjoy the remaining 7 games of Sunday.

When the dust settled, 7 of the 8 protected seeds won their way to the Sweet 16, with only #11 Texas being able to knock off #3 Gonzaga.

Congratulations to our leader after Saturday night’s game, Matt Reilly – who sits all alone on top of the standings at 440 points. In a tie for 2nd are Porter Standley, Mark Walsh, and Sam Franklin – just 20 points behind. And then, in a tie for 5th, we have a 12 way tie between Brent Peterson, Karen Barton, Kathy Godwin, Tony Wilson, Jim Sell, Joanna Crabbe, Al Lester, Donnie McCullough, Eric Brown, Rosemary McKnight and Debbe Evans.

In the Upset Pool, Matt also has taken the lead at 202 points. In 2nd place is Tony Wilson at 187 pts, followed closely by Mark Walsh (181 – 3rd), Corey McConville (174 – 4th) and Lochlan Middlebrook (171 – 5th).

Tons of people are still pretty close to the leaders – as the favorites winning tend to also lead to a very full and close leaderboard. So, we should have an exciting competition to see who can continue to hang in the top ten of the standings.

Sunday will bring 8 more teams to the Sweet 16, and in an interesting twist of fate – the favorites aren’t always the favorite. In three games (Kansas vs. Saint John’s, Virginia vs. Tennessee, and Alabama vs. Texas Tech), the Vegas line actually forecasts the protected seed losing. So, we should be in for some exciting games tomorrow!!!!

The two teams that resembled Cinderella both fell Saturday night. VCU fought hard in the first half, but Illinois jumped out quickly in the second half, and this time, there would be no magically large come-back for the Rams.

The last game of the evening was closer. With about 5 minutes left in the game, Arkansas’s Darius Acuff Jr hit a three-pointer to give the Razorbacks a 7 point lead – very similar to the deficit High Point faced on Thursday to Wisconsin. And we know there was a ton of heart on this team.

High Point’s Rob Martin would quickly go to work, and with 3 1/2 minutes to go, he would drive past his man and quickly head to the basket, hitting a layup that gave him 30 points for the evening.

But just as Martin was putting his team on his back and trying to will them to a victory, Arkansas had Darius Acuff Jr. He would drive back to the hoop to hit a layup and give Arkansas the lead back. Then, after a defensive stop, Acuff drove the lane again and hit a pretty fingertip roll to extend the lead to 4.

This time, Terry Anderson would try to drive the lane, but the Razorbacks’ Billy Richmond Jr was there to block the shot. Of course, that meant Arkansas got the ball into Acuff’s hands. And with the shot clock ticking down, Acuff looked like he was going to drive to the hoop again, and as the High Point defender stepped back into the lane, Acuff stopped, took a step back, and drilled a deep three-pointer to give Arkansas a 7 point lead.

High Point would continue to try to desperately come back, including a crazy deep three pointer around the logo by Braden Hausen. But the lead was too big, and the clock struck midnight on Cinderella. Arkansas had survived and advanced.