Well, I went 1-1 in both games – if I got the totals right, I missed the spread. If I got the spread correct, I missed the totals. So, that seems about right for my handicapping.

But I did get all the formatting cleaned up so that I could have the nicer view of the Handicapping page (and so that 32 First Round games don’t suddenly start flooding the blog).

Right now, I have only tonight’s games and yesterday’s results in the page (I have Lehigh and Miami OH to cover the spreads). I am really excited to see the Miami vs. SMU game. I want to see if Miami can prove all the critics wrong and beat a power conference team. I want to see if with BJ Edwards back, will the Mustangs turn into the dangerous team that could make a run in the tournament. It should be a fantastic game.

So, as the Lunatic goes through his check-list (that only exists in his head which probably explains why he is so far behind). He needs to pick all the games (and at least get Thursday’s games by the spreads – which is a lot harder than simply picking that the #1 seed will beat the #16 seed).

Will I use sound analysis to pick my brackets this year? Or will I get paralyzed with so much data to analyze that I will run out of time and pick wildly around midnight so that I at least have a bracket to root for? I like to believe it will be the first – but something tells me it will be the second.

Enjoy tonight’s games! And don’t forget to make your picks to Stomp the Lunatic!!!

With about 3 minutes left in the game, Texas’ Chendall Weaver hit a free throw to give the Longhorns what looked like a comfortable 9 point lead against the NC State Wolfpack. But remember, no lead is safe in March.

With under 2 minutes to play, Tre Holloman drives to the basket, gets fouled, and makes both the layup and free throw to cut the lead to 6 points. An immediate foul sent Dailyn Swain to the line – where he calmly made both of them. But the Wolfpack’s Paul McNeil Jr would come back and hit a three-pointer, and suddenly that comfortable lead is down to 5 points with 90 seconds to play.

Texas struggles to break the press, and eventually turn it over. Quadir Copeland picks up the ball and drives to the hoop but gets his layup blocked by Tramon Mark. Unfortunately for the Longhorns, the ball would go to NC State, and they would find Paul McNeil Jr for another three-pointer. We have a 2 point game with a minute to play!!!!

Texas almost turns the ball over again but they finally get the ball in successfully, and run down the clock. The ball ends up into Tramon Mark, and he starts to try to get free at the top of the key but he is guarded tightly. But big players make shots – Mark gets almost to the foul line, takes a dribble to his right as if he is going to drive to the lane, pivots and hits a ridiculous fade-away shot to extend the lead back to 4 points at 66-62.

But the Wolfpack were not done, they got the ball out to Darrion Williams on the wing and with a defender in his face, he drills the three-pointer to make it a one point game.

Texas’ struggles against the press continue as they get trapped in the corner and have to call their final timeout. But this time, when they get it in, Dailyn Swain loses control of the ball and it goes out-of-bounds – the Wolfpack have a chance to take the lead! They get the ball into Tre Holloman and he drives straight to the hoop, where he gets fouled. So, the 80+% free throw shooter goes to the line and misses the first free throw long. But he hits the second to tie the game.

Texas brings the ball down and runs down the clock. They get the ball into Tramon Mark on the wing. Mark drives to the basket, and with very little time on the clock launches a high arching shot over his defender, and the ball rattles in the basket with 1 second to play.

After Texas got lucky that the refs didn’t call a technical foul for their bench sprinting onto the court thinking the game is over, NC State got one more desperation chance – but the shot gets blocked by Swain and the game ends with a 68-66 victory by the Longhorns.

First of all, I need to thank Charlie. Because with the lead being close to double digits, I started to nod off before he called me about trying to logon to the webpage. Once I helped him navigate the site, I got to see the final 3 minutes of chaos in Dayton.

Second of all, I have to mention Karma again. Remember how the Lunatic said in his Handicapping post that many of his Locks end up failing. He locked the over at 158.5 points because when these teams played last time, they combined for 199 points. So, it makes sense that the Lunatic’s lock was wrong by 24.5 points. If Mark had missed his shot and the game went to overtime, the Lunatic probably still loses the over bet. Don’t mess with Karma!!!!

Finally, what a fantastic couple of games. March is known for wild comebacks, and in about a minute, both UMBC and NC State took 9 point leads that looked unsurmountable, and completely erased them. Sure, both their comebacks ended up falling just a basket short, but in both cases it was thanks to some last second heroics by the Howard Bison and Texas Longhorns.

I guess I need to go to sleep since I almost fell asleep earlier. Hope you all enjoyed the games – and that the rest of the tournament is as good as the games were tonight.

With two minutes left to play, Howard looked like they were safely advancing out of the first four with an 11 point lead for a date with Michigan.

Then, Caden Diggs hit a layup to cut the lead to 9. So, Howard ran the shot clock down but Cam Gillus missed a long jumper – still they took 30 seconds off the clock. Then, UMBC’s DJ Armstrong Jr got fouled in the lane and hit two free throws to cut the lead to 7. Howard looked clearly content to take another 30 seconds off the clock, so UMBC fouled Cam Gillus – and he missed the free throw. This time, it would be Caden Diggs heading to the line after being fouled, and his two free throw cut the lead to 5 with about a minute to play.

So, UMBC fouls Gillus again, and the 77% free throw shooter leaves it short, so the Retrievers rush down the court. They get the ball out to DJ Armstrong Jr on the wing, who takes a step back to the three point line and launches a shot over his defender. And it hits nothing but net – the lead is down to 2 points with 43 seconds.

With the momentum suddenly going against the Bison, they wind the clock down and get the ball inside to Bryce Harris. Looking like he might not even get a shot off – he takes a wild 10 foot turn-around jumper, and drills it with 14 seconds to extend the lead back to 4 points.

UMBC sprints down the court with Jah’Likai King needing only 7 seconds to get to the rim and cut the lead back to 2 points, and so they foul Howard’s Isaiah Brown with about 4 seconds left. Brown hits the first free throw, but misses the second, and the Retrievers have one last chance to tie the game. But Armstrong’s half court shot misses, and Howard escapes with an 86-83 victory.

Hopefully, that is a reminder to all favorites that the only lead that is safe is the one that happens when the clock strikes zero. The Retrievers cut an 11 point lead down to 2 in just over a minute. But unfortunately for them, their frantic comeback just ran out of time.

It was certainly an exciting way to start the tournament. 66 more games to go!!!!

Hope that everyone has worn Green to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!!!! The NCAA has given us the gift on this wonderful day of the two play-in games in Dayton.

Currently, Howard has jumped out to a 49-41 halftime lead in a high-paced game.

I sadly might not blog too much about the games. I really need to get going on my handicapping and picks. I am hoping that I will at least get the cleaned up version of the Handicapping page by the time that Texas and NC State are done playing.

So many things to rant about – but I am going to try to focus. It is just so hard when the play-in games are actually happening. The tournament has started!!!!!!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!!

I will eventually get the full cleaned up version of the Handicapping page up and running. Once we get to the 16 games on Thursday followed by 16 games on Friday, that is a little bit too much to put into the main blog – even for the stats geek like myself.

But I also don’t know that I will get home from work in time to get the handicapping page fully ready before tomorrow’s games tip off. So, since there is only two games, I will handicap them here.

For those unfamiliar with the Lunatic’s attempt to gamble imaginary money at his imaginary casino, here is how it works. The Lunatic rates his bets into three tiers – a $10 bet means he has no clue who is going to win the game but it is no fun to have an article about predicting all the games and not actually predict a winner. A $20 bet means he feels pretty confident about the outcome – he wouldn’t call it a sure thing, but he feels good about the pick. A $30 bet means that he is calling his shot that this is a lock, and something has to go massively wrong for it to not come through.

Historically, I get most of my locks wrong, and I get most of my guesses right. Then, I eventually get tired of losing on my tiers and bet the same amount each time in a sad attempt to get even.

I also leave this disclaimer on the main site. This is for entertainment purposes only. I am a sleep deprived Crazed Lunatic – betting real money on my picks is a truly crazy action. And you never know how his friend Karma will act. Normally Karma makes all my Locks lose – I got too cocky and it needs to knock me down. But don’t anger Karma – it knows that if you bet against the Lunatic knowing he will do badly, that is when his imaginary picks will get hot and do well….

I also mention this important fact (in case you were not convinced by the entertainment purposes only clause). The Lunatic has won small amounts of imaginary money the last few years in this crazy effort to pick all the games. However, the Lunatic has never gone into a true Las Vegas Sportsbook and left with more money than he came with. So, I do not bet real money any more – Vegas has won enough from me.

Enough with the disclaimers – lets get to the games.

6:40 pm on truTV – #16 Howard vs #16 UMBC (-1.5) – Over/Under: 140.5

I do feel bad in one respect for Howard and UMBC. Because they both did something that many teams were unable to do. Not only did they win their conference’s regular season title, but they also backed it up by winning their conference tournament. And their reward is to play in the first game of the tournament.

I don’t know a lot about these teams, but I did see a little of the America East championship where UMBC beat Vermont, and they looked pretty decent. Also, the statistics say UMBC is slightly better (which makes sense why Vegas has them as a 1.5 point favorite). It is hard to only win a game by a point (it happens, but normally a free throw happens to pad a lead). So, while it is a guess, I would go with UMBC for $10 to cover. As for the spread, the teams average closer to 144 pts per game, so I think we are getting good odds with the over – I will take the over for $20.

Lunatic’s picks – UMBC ($10), Over ($20)

9:15 pm on truTV – NC State (-1.5) vs Texas – O/U: 158.5.

This is one of those rare games where you have a reasonable data point from the regular season. These two teams met in Maui in November and played a fast-paced game where the Longhorns won 102-97. Both teams come into the tournament struggling as they both have lost 5 of their last 6 games. But the one thing that doesn’t seem to change for either team is that they score a lot of points.

I think you have to lock the over. When these teams met in the season, they scored 199 points. Even if they don’t light it up in Dayton as they did in Maui, you have to figure they are getting to 158.5. Give me the over for $30. As for the game, I feel like I am getting a gift – Texas won the regular season by 5 and I am going to get another 1.5 points. I am going to put $20 on Texas getting 1.5 points – I feel like they should repeat what they did in Maui, but realizing that we are talking about two teams that struggled coming into the tournament, I am not going to lock the outcome like I will the points.

Lunatic’s picks – Texas ($20), Over ($30)

So, there is your Tuesday preview. We should have two really fun and really competitive games tomorrow. The tournament will begin in just about 18 hours. So very exciting!!!!

And he is scared to death of it. While I can not explain it, I still believe that Karma exists. We all have sat there and watched a game where a referee calls a foul that looks like a bad call, and then the 90% free-throw shooter goes to the line and misses the free throw. The ball doesn’t lie – it knows!

Blogging things makes me scared that one comment that goes too far could impact my favorite team. But the last few weeks, I have been thinking about things that I can’t keep avoiding the topic.

I will take my Boilers for example. At the end of the Northwestern game, once the game was clearly out of reach in the final minute, the coach subbed out senior star Nick Martinelli (who had fought so hard all year including that night where he scored 25 points on 10-16 from the field) so the Northwestern fans could cheer for him one last time in Chicago. And as the Northwestern fans stood to cheer for him, many of the Purdue fans at the United Center stood as well so the entire arena was giving him a standing ovation for all he has meant for Northwestern basketball. It wasn’t the type of trash talking you usually see from fans – it was everyone standing in respect for a senior who had played his heart out.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been to enough Indiana games to see things that I was not proud to see the fans do. But for this night, I was proud to be a Purdue fan. Because sportsmanship matters and videos of the game surfaced afterwards of this nice moment. I thought to myself about writing about it – but I was too afraid it might jinx my Boilers.

So of course, I made sure I wore the same Purdue shirt that I wore and the same black socks in case they were lucky the next day, and the Boilers won again against Nebraska. And then I washed those lucky clothes because maybe Karma really liked it when I wore those clothes – and they held on to beat UCLA. And so for the fourth day in a row, I wore my Purdue shirt, and somehow they won the Big 10 championship. That shirt and those socks will certainly be worn on Friday as we play Queens.

I totally understand that it is more likely that the players simply did well. Oscar Cluff played inspired basketball for 4 days. Braden Smith broke the Big 10 tournament record for assists. Trey Kaufman-Renn scored 20 points against Michigan. Everything clicked. But it is nice to think that because the fans did something nice that Karma looked favorably on the Boilers. It is nice to think that by simply wearing an old black Purdue T-shirt and black socks that I can send some luck my Boilers way. And so I get nervous about writing about Karma.

But things keep coming up that make me see the coincidences work in the opposite direction as well. Lets take a couple of Hall-of-Fame (or at least future HOF) coaches. First, lets look at Dan Hurley from UConn. The Huskies needed a win in the last regular season game to claim a share of the Big East title. And so of course, Hurley was upset when they needed a basket in the last drive, there was certainly contact, but no foul was called leading to Marquette winning the game. And so he goes on one of his tirades, bumping into the referee as he screamed at him. So, he gets tossed from the game. It didn’t impact the final score – there wasn’t enough time once the foul wasn’t called for the Huskies to win. But his press conference afterwards was awful.

“I don’t think I bumped the ref,” Hurley said. “ I thought I got close to yelling at John. If John thinks I bumped him, he’ll say I bumped him. I think I yelled into the back of his head, ‘Foul! Foul! You could screenshot whatever you want to screenshot. I don’t feel like I made any contact with John. I don’t believe I did.”

It is laughable to think that all he said was Foul. And to say you can screenshot it doesn’t make it true is ridiculous. The game is nationally televised and everyone saw Hurley come onto the court like a maniac and bump into the referee. No one would have thought any less of him if he simply said, I was so upset – that drive was so important to our season and I felt there was a foul and I lost my composure. I should have never physically touched the ref. But Hurley simply denied what everyone in the world saw.

That leads us to Saturday night at Madison Square Garden where the Huskies could get some redemption and take the conference tournament title. And St. John’s runs them out of the gym (and Hurley got another technical foul for complaining with the referees). You could say it is coincidence and St. John’s just played an inspired game. But the Lunatic is scared of Karma and if it played a role.

Lets talk about the Michigan State Spartans and Jeremy Fears Jr. First of all and above anything else – Fears is an incredible player who has the capability of leading the Spartans all the way to a National Championship. But he is a dirty player. The narrative started with their first game against Michigan, but it really got bad after he intentionally kicked a Minnesota player in the groin who had guarded him too close. He claims he slipped, but when a person slips, they don’t throw one of their legs backwards up to their waist while their other leg stays perfectly balanced and in place. Izzo said he would chew him out and deal with it that night.

So, sure enough in their finale against Michigan, the same type of play happened as he got fouled on the wing and suddenly kicked his leg up towards the Elliot Cadeau’s groin. It looked like he missed – but it also looked pretty clear what his intent was. Of course, he said he slipped again. At the press conference, Izzo said the following.

Izzo said he “did what I was gonna do, I chewed him out for it” before continuing to assail Michigan’s Dusty May’s public comments from the first game. “But I watched it on tape, and the guy’s pushing him in the back. And sometimes that happens. I’m sick of it being one-sided, though. That’s what upset me about the first time. So Fears will get his lunch from me. I wonder if some of their guys will get their lunch from what happened in the first game that didn’t get public. I don’t condone anything. I don’t think he tried to kick him on purpose.”

I have watched college basketball passionately for a long time. I remember playing in high school as a small 5’7″ kid with a much bigger player on my back. And never once did I get pushed in a way which would cause one of my legs to flail wildly straight into their groin. Somehow, this scenario happened twice to an All Big-10 player, and we are supposed to believe that he was falling and it wasn’t intentional. And it is complete garbage to say that Izzo chewed him out for it. If Izzo truly chewed him out for it, Fears never would have done it a second time. And even Izzo knows there is a difference between a player guarding physically and close, and a player kicking someone in the groin. The first is a basketball play – one that he coaches every single player who has worn a Spartans jersey to do. The second has nothing to do with basketball and has no place in the game.

So, that leads to Friday night as they play an undermanned UCLA team when Tyler Bilodeau, their leading scorer and rebounder, injures his knee late in the first half. And Donovan Dent goes off to score 23 points while Trent Perry adds 22 to lead the Bruins to a 4 point upset of the Spartans. And while I know it was just an inspired game by Dent and Perry, the Lunatic wonders if Karma had anything to do with it.

And yet, I was still afraid to write about it. The Lunatic wants Karma to be on his side. And then Monday’s news hits. So, lets go back to January, when the Alabama Crimson Tide invited Charles Bediako to challenge that he should still have 2 years of eligibility because the NCAA allowed other pros to play. Eventually the court sided with the NCAA, but Bediako got an injunction to get to play for a few games. Ironically, the Crimson Tide only went 3-2 in the 5 games that Bediako played, including a loss in his first game back at home against Tennessee. Once the court ruled against him, the Tide finished the season 7-2, with a win on the road against Tennessee. They actually might be a better team without Bediako – but they were willing to bend the rules to get whatever edge they could get.

I am sure that I will rant more about this – because player eligibility is a real issue that needs to be discussed by the Lunatic. But that is not what this rant is about. It is about the force that scares the Lunatic to death. And so when today’s news came, it forced the article to be written.

A few people have said that Alabama should have to forfeit the three games they won. Of course, that isn’t possible – it would break the court order. A few people have said that the Selection Committee should give them a bad seed to punish them – but that isn’t fair either. It might be a punishment to Alabama, but it also would punish some 8-11 seed by making them play against a true 4-5 seed instead of a 7-8 seed.

So, then the news comes out today. Second leading scorer Aden Holloway was arrested and charged with multiple felonies when the West Alabama Narcotics Task Force search a residence near Alabama’s campus and recovered more than a pound of marijuana, paraphernalia and cash.

It makes no sense to me why the second leading scorer of Alabama is involved with any of that. The kid is probably making a ridiculous amount of money through NIL programs as a star player for the Crimson Tide. But the school has announced that he has been removed from campus – so one has to assume that means he will not be playing in the NCAA Tournament.

Once again, I am sure the reality is this is just a young man who had too much money and decided that he wanted to get mixed up with drugs. But there is part of me that is scared that it was really Karma punishing the Tide because it knew no one else could. Lets be fair, it might even lead to the Tide getting better. Everyone was excited about getting Bediako back, and thought it was a big loss when he was ruled ineligible – and the Tide got better. Maybe Houston Mallette or Taylor Bol Bowen become the next man up, and they become one of the fairy tale stories of March as they lead Alabama to the Final Four.

Karma is all around us – so it is important to be a good sport and a good fan. Cheer for your team – absolutely. Don’t trash talk – it is not worth hurting someone’s feelings over a game. Don’t lie such as Hurley and Izzo did – Karma does not like it when people lie.

As for the Lunatic, I will be washing my black Purdue T-shirt that Karma has told me I need to wear. The Lunatic will do whatever Karma asks him to do.

There is so much to do, and so little time. And the world of college basketball just keeps giving me all kinds of things that I can write about.

I know that I need to be concentrating on getting my handicapping page started – the play-in games start tomorrow. Don’t worry – we don’t pick the play-in games for the Stomp the Lunatic contest so you have until Thursday to make your picks. But that doesn’t stop the Lunatic from trying to win imaginary money in his imaginary casino and showing off his amazing expertise on handicapping college basketball games.

At some point, I have to come up with my picks. That probably won’t happen until late Wednesday night as I watch the Miami OH vs SMU game.

There is so much to blog about. And of course, as I finished dinner and got ready to do all of this, the power went out taking out my internet. So, instead of starting at 8 pm, I am starting at 10 pm.

So, not sure what will win – a quick blog post, handicapping Tuesday’s games, exhaustion causing the Lunatic to desperately try to get some sleep before he no longer can. Who knows – not even the Lunatic…..

The NCAA website continues to try to stop me at every turn. They have not updated the NET rankings for the last 5 games. However, ESPN doesn’t care – they have the 5 box scores for today’s games. So, I have updated the box score data with the 5 games and just left the NET and WAB rankings as they were – to be honest, I can’t imagine they changed that drastically due to 5 games.

I also created the cheat sheet. With all the changes in the data, I think the offensive and defensive ratings are back to being their average points per game – they have not been adjusted based on pace of play (like we did last year and as you might see on other analytics websites that provide the ratings based on 100 possessions). At some point, I might go back and look at fixing it. But then again, lets be honest – whether it is points per game or points per 100 possessions, it still tells you a similar thing. And the adjusted values are based on how they did vs. how many points per game their opponent did. So, the adjusted margin numbers mean similar things – they are just not adjusted for pace.

Lets face it, we want to see the rantings of the Lunatic anyways. This lets me move on to my handicapping page. So, while all of you are concentrating on winning the actual pool, I will be doing a pointless exercise to predict against the spread for all 67 games.

As for my bracketology, I am pretty pleased that the only team that I got wrong was San Diego State over SMU. And to be fair to me, I was really probably concentrating more on the fact that my Boilers had taken a lead on Michigan and were trying desperately to hang on to it. I even mentioned the fact that I wasn’t sure what the committee would do about the injury to SMU’s BJ Edwards ankle – apparently, that was some type of foreshadowing as the last team I mentioned in the bracketology page would be the one team I missed. But apparently, the press all got it right – as it looks like many of them got 68 of 68 teams right this year.

At some point, I will do a final wrap-up on the bracketology as well as think about what I think the committee got wrong (which couldn’t be too much since the only team I missed on was the last team I entered into the field). But not tonight.

The Lunatic is tired but happy. The tournament has been released. The website is ready for you to enter your picks. The cheat sheet is on the research site for those of you who want to take a peak at it before you pick the games. The Lunatic’s bracketology that he created over half of while watching the Purdue game ended up relatively respectable for the amount of attention he put into it (since he had to spend so much time trying to figure out the basketball stats).

So, the Lunatic is going to get some sleep in a feeble attempt to not turn into a zombie by the time Thursday and Friday come along. We all know better that this is a lost cause. And lets face it – the Lunatic’s rantings are better when he is sleep deprived.

I hope that whatever team you were rooting for got a good seed or a decent matchup in the tournament. And I hope that all of you find some time this week to join us and make your picks – it should be an incredible NCAA men’s championship!!!! The brackets are released and ready for you to enter your picks. Good luck to everyone in Stomping the Lunatic!!!!

Well, I am horribly behind schedule. I had all these naive thoughts of coming up with this really cool stats-based website with all the information that the committee has at their fingertips. And then, I totally struggled amongst by biases vs. what the statistical information said.

Since it is running late, I am going to at least get the seeds out there – and then after all the dust has settled, I will clean up the bracketology site. But if I wait, then no one will know that these picks came out before the actual selection – which makes no sense.

1 – Duke, Arizona, Michigan, Florida

2 – Houston, UConn, Iowa State, Purdue

3 – Michigan State, Illinois, Virginia, St. John’s

4 – Gonzaga, Arkansas, Nebraska, Alabama

5 – Kansas, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, Texas Tech

6 – Tennessee, North Carolina, Louisville, BYU

7 – St. Mary’s, Miami (FL), Kentucky, UCLA

8 – Villanova, Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia

9 – TCU, Texas A&M, Utah State, Iowa

10 – St. Louis, UCF, Missouri, Santa Clara

11 – VCU, South Florida, Texas/NC State, Miami(OH)/San Diego State

12 – McNeese, Akron, Northern Iowa, High Point

13 – Hawaii, Hofstra, California Baptist, North Dakota State

14 – Troy, Wright State, Penn, Kennesaw State

15 – Furman, Idaho, Tennessee State, UMBC

16 – Siena, Queens, LIU/Howard, Lehigh/Prairie View

First Four Out – Oklahoma, Indiana, Seton Hall, Auburn

Second Four Out – Cal, Stanford, SMU, New Mexico

I had several places where my biases might get me but I am going to go with it.

• I bumped Purdue up from a 3 seed to a 2 seed (at the expense of Michigan State) thanks to their huge 80-72 victory over #3 Michigan in the Big 10 tournament championship.
• The polls and the statistics suggest St. John’s should be further back – but I bumped them up to a 3 seed because of the fact that they won both the regular season championship as well as the huge 72-52 victory against #6 UConn in the Big East tournament championship.
• I moved Arkansas into the 4 seeds thanks to their victory in the SEC championship. I originally wanted to put Vanderbilt there because of their win against Florida, but I couldn’t put the Commodores over both Arkansas and Alabama who finished 2 games ahead in the standings.
• I am horrible at seeding the middle of the bracket – that will probably continue.
• I could not keep Miami (OH) out of the tournament because of a 4 point loss in the MAC tournament after a 31-0 regular season.

My last three teams came down to San Diego State, Oklahoma and Indiana.

• Indiana might have had the best season and they had no losses outside of Quad 1 or 2 teams.
• Oklahoma might have been the best of these teams in the last couple of weeks as they have been on a tear. But they also went 7-11 in the conference before having a great SEC conference tournament. The committee has tended to weigh the regular season more than a great conference tournament.
• That left me with San Diego State – they did have one bad loss at Colorado State (Quad 3), but they also finished 2nd in the Mountain West and backed that up by getting to the conference tournament final. The Mountain West tends to get more teams, and so I thought having a 2nd team made the most sense over a struggling power conference team.
• I feel the Big East gets a bad break. Seton Hall is a competitive team. But their only Quad 1 victory was against NC State – and they had 4 losses against Creighton, Butler and two to DePaul. It isn’t the worst thing to lose a couple unexpected road games in your conference – but then you have to beat one of the top teams and the Pirates did not do that.
• Auburn had the best NET / WAB rankings of all these teams, but I could not put a 17-16 team in the tournament. The committee has never done that before, and so if I am predicting what they will do, I have to predict they stay consistent to the principle.
• I was not sure what to do with SMU – they have an injury to one of their star players, and he might be able to recover and be back next week for the tournament. But they lost 5 of their last 6 games and their statistics fell to the point that they would no longer be in the running based on those numbers. Since I don’t have a way to recalculate the NET based on injuries – I can’t tell where they would fall.

I am so excited that Purdue has won the Big 10 championship over Michigan. I am so excited that the tournament field is going to be announced in 10 minutes. I am so excited!!!!

The Lunatic is so excited – the tournament is literally around the corner. And his Boilers are giving him hope that they can still achieve some of their goals of the season as they have made it to the Big 10 Championship final against Michigan. There would certainly be no harm in losing to the Wolverines, who will be one of the top 4 seeds of the tournament as only Wisconsin and Duke have lost to them. But it would certainly be a statement that they have come back from their losing streak to end the regular season.

Bubble teams should thank Arkansas for ending the reign of terror in Nashville being caused by Ole Miss, despite needing overtime to do it. The Rebels certainly are not making the at-large field at 15-20, but they were an overtime period away from playing Vanderbilt for the SEC title today.

Bubble teams should be afraid of Dayton, as the Flyers knocked off St. Louis in one of the most exciting games of the day. Is VCU’s at-large bid secure based on making it to the Atlantic 10 final, or do they need to beat the Flyers to keep their spot in the field. This is one of those places where I think the Sunday championships are detrimental. I know for a fact that the committee creates alternative brackets based on the results of the 5 games today. But this is one of those games where you simply think – it would be so easy to list the winner of the VCU / Dayton game as the first automatic qualifier as a 12 seed. I trust the committee has done the right thing – and theoretically, that means that if Dayton upsets the Rams today, the Atlantic 10 could be seeing 3 teams in the tournament.

What to do about the final #1 seed? Florida seemed to have a strangehold on it until Vanderbilt dismantled them. It doesn’t seem right that UConn claims the last spot when they didn’t get either the Big East regular season or tournament championship – as St. John’s took them down convincingly last night at Madison Square Garden. Houston might have made the best argument for it – but they couldn’t complete their comeback against #3 Arizona. I am going to give the nod to the Gators, but I am interested to see what the Committee does.

If you believe in karma (and the Lunatic believes in lots of superstitious things but especially karma), the final game of the night might have been one of those examples. The WAC tournament opened with some drama of threatening to remove its regular season champions Utah Valley over exit fees that the school was refusing to pay and had not put into escrow while the court case was being decided.

Well, Utah Valley did comply and put the money is escrow and were allowed to play in the tournament. And it looked like they were going to win the automatic bid last night as they held a 59-52 lead with just 3 minutes to play as Jackson Holcombe got fouled while making a layup and hit the free throw to complete the three-point play. But California Baptist’s Dominique Daniels Jr would hit three 3 pointers including one with 17 seconds left to cap off an 11-2 run to take the lead 63-61. The Wolverines would get one more chance, as Trevan Leonhardt almost ran the pick and roll play with Isaac Davis to perfection as the Lancers converged on Leonhardt and could only watch as Leonhardt’s lob pass went up to the outstretched hands to Davis above the rim. And then Davis missed the dunk and the clock hit zero sending California Baptist to the dance.

The Lunatic managed to complete 4 of his 5 goals. He certainly watched some good basketball, his Boilers won, he got the data converted, and got to spend some time with Charlie, Katie and Elizabeth as we had a wonderful dinner out with one of our good friends, Anna. I even had managed to spend some time collecting information from the Websites that I can’t scrape with Python (such as the Kenpom, KPI and BPI rankings) to help with my Bracketology. And then my old body tired out once we got home from dinner – I did at least get to watch the ending of the Duke / Virginia game. The Cavaliers really gave the Blue Devils a battle as they held Cameron Boozer in check, but Isaiah Evans scored 20 including a big three-pointer to give them a 3 point lead with about 5 minutes left, and Cayden Boozer added 16 including a layup with about 2 minutes left to keep the Blue Devils ahead. And then Duke’s defense held off any late rallies from the Cavaliers to lock in their spot as the number 1 team in the country.

So, I have a ridiculous amount of work to do today on bracketology. I don’t even know how I am going to answer the bubble questions. But it still was a very nice day for the Lunatic.

With 5 championships all that is remaining in the schedule, lets look at what we have.

We start at Noon on ESPN2 as the Ivy League decides their bid with regular season champion Yale (24-5) plays Penn (17-11). Yale has decent NET numbers but without a Quad 1 win, they need to claim the Ivy’s automatic bid.

At 1 pm on ESPN, #17 Arkansas plays #22 Vanderbilt at what will feel like a home game for the Commodores in the SEC Championship in Nashville, TN. Both teams are close to each other in rankings, so this might be the difference between which team is a 4 seed and which one is a 5 seed.

At 1 pm on CBS, the Atlantic 10 tips off with the most bracket-influencing game of the day as VCU will play Dayton in Pittsburgh. With many of the bubble teams losing early, it was believed that VCU would hold on to its at large bid if it reached the final. But that was because it was believed they would be playing regular season champion St. Louis – can their resume withstand a loss to Dayton?

At 3:15 pm on ESPN, the American Conference has regular season champion South Florida trying to defend their championship against 2nd place Wichita State. South Florida has a NET ranking of 45 so it will be interesting to see what the selection committee does with the Bulls if they can’t claim the automatic bid from the conference.

And finally, at 3:30 pm on CBS, my 18th ranked Boilers will play the 3rd ranked Michigan Wolverines and try to become only the second team in the Big 10 to beat the mighty Wolverines. Seeding for these teams will probably be set regardless of the outcome, but it should be a fantastic game to watch.

And of course, at 6 pm on CBS, the Selection Committee will announce the 68 teams for the NCAA men’s basketball championship. And then, it will be time to Stomp the Lunatic!!!!