On Saturday night, many people were enjoying one of the best rivalries in college basketball as Duke hosted North Carolina at Cameron Indoor Stadium. And while Marvin Bagley III and senior Grayson Allen were leading the Blue Devils back from being down 13, quietly in Evansville, Indiana was a game that might have had more significance – especially for the two small schools that were playing. In that game, the Racers from Murray State defended their regular season championship by beating second seeded Belmont 68-51 to win the Ohio Valley Championship game. The Racers entered the Ohio Valley tournament as 16-2 in conference and 23-5 overall. But unlike Duke and North Carolina, who can survive to lose multiple games in conference, Murray State knew it needed to win three more games or all that work would be lost. And as true champions, Murray State rose to the occasion and won their conference tournament – making them the first team with a bid to the 2018 NCAA Championship!!! It also means one other thing – IT MUST BE MARCH!!!!!
And as four more conferences (Missouri Valley, Big South, Atlantic Sun and the Big 10) play their conference championship games Sunday to award 4 more teams bids to the dance, it can only mean one more thing – it must be time to STOMP THE LUNATIC!!!!!!!!!!!
The Lunatic is back for another beating, with his foolish attempt to predict college basketball games and provide entertaining commentary that could only possibly be the ramblings of a sleep-deprived lunatic. We all know better – he is no real threat – his kids will likely have better picks by picking schools that their grandparents attended. It needs to be all of our mission to put the Lunatic back in his proper place.
So, without any more delays, the 2018 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. Please remember that even if you participated last year, you must register again for this year’s contest (although it is much easier to wait until next week – when the registry page will lead you straight to your home to enter your picks).
Those who are looking to build their models can get an extra head start – the Excel document with all the results from this season’s games is already on the site – updated through Saturday night’s games. I will periodically update it throughout the week, when I am not ranting about the games or other things.
As always, I have simply mailed past distribution lists and those of you who might have heard me mention that I lose my sanity around this time of year. One of these years, the Lunatic might get organized enough to create a real distribution list. I probably would not be counting on that happening this year – he is crazy after all. Please feel free to invite your friends, or anyone else that I simply left off the list by accident.
Once the committee has announced the 68 teams, 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. As we did last year, we will not pick the 4 play-in games. So, all entries are needed by Thursday, March 15th by the time the first games start (typically Noon).
If you have any questions, feel free to send me an e-mail, 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!!!!!!!!!!!!!