I can’t decide if I should be thanking my Boilermakers or not. The game kind of got me all riled up as they were in a ridiculously close game against USC that basically got won when a pretty soft foul was called with 28 seconds left on an inbounds play to Trey Kaufman-Renn. The Boilermakers’ big man hit both free throws to give Purdue a 2 point lead, and then had a good defensive stop on a shot from Desmond Claude and a turnover as everyone was slipping to the floor. So, certainly not pretty, but Purdue survived. It is almost 1 am as I am finally winding down, so not happy that I stayed up so late when exhausted. But at the end of the day, it allowed me to clean up pieces of the website – so add to it a Purdue victory leads me to being pretty happy.

The long awaited box scores / schedule / net rankings Excel file has finally been loaded to the website. If you go to the Research link on the menu, you will see that the 2025 Schedule File is now available. The typical disclaimer is there. My process checks to see that the records (by site and by quad) match what is on the NCAA NET Rankings page. For those of you who wonder why I do this each year, here is the brief story Each year, we get several people who have demonstrated the power of statistics by building models in order to predict the games – some with tons of success. Bill Kahn had been near the top of the standings multiple years by building Bradley-Terry models. And our 2006 champion, David Shaddick, won by using a model he created with this data for a stats training course at work for analysts. At the end of the day, good statistical techniques can be used to do a great job of forecasting the game – even if it doesn’t capture all the strange possibilities that can happen. As always, if you notice any issues with the data, please let me know!!! Enjoy the data!!!

I also was able to be awake enough to fix the tags on my bracketology page – it isn’t pretty like I want it – but it at least is readable again (as a joke, I should have posted it so people could see how bad it got). Anyways, I need a starting point for the rankings, and so I came up with a method to list the teams that still have a chance (along with all the automatic bids). At this point, we won’t see any more conference championships decided until Saturday – when the majority of the games will send a team to the tournament.

I look up from my blogging to see a wild finish. The Kentucky Wildcats found themselves up 12 points with 4 minutes to play. But the Oklahoma Sooners started chipping away. Still, with 40 seconds left the Wildcats had a 6 point lead. Then, Oklahoma’s Jeremiah Fears took over. Fears hit a three-pointer to cut the lead to 3, then stole the ball as the Sooners pressed and passed it to Jalon Moore for a dunk to cut the lead to 1. Then, the Wildcats continued to struggle with the press and Fears stole the ball again. Fears settled down the team into their half court offense, drove the lane and made a pretty layup to give the Sooners a lead with 6 seconds left. Unfortunately, there was still 6 seconds left. Kentucky passed the ball into Otega Oweh who streaked up the court all the way to the baseline, cut to the hoop, and shot a floater that hit the rim, rolled a little, and fell in the net to crush the Sooners comeback at the buzzer.

The entire SEC has been wild today – which makes sense out of the toughest conference. Ole Miss hit a buzzer beater to knock off Arkansas by 3. And Texas continued their desperation run by knocking off rivals Texas A&M in double overtime. The only game that didn’t finish as a one possession game was the Missouri vs. Mississippi State game – and even though the Tigers won by 12, it was a 2 point game with only 4 minutes left before they ran away in the final minutes.

Duke fans are extremely nervous as they watched Cooper Flagg leave with a scary ankle sprain and Malik Brown leave after dislocating his shoulder. They did still beat Georgia Tech by 8 but it is not clear if Flagg or Brown will be able to play when the games matter so much more next week.

There were bubble teams that advanced their cause – such as North Carolina who held off Wake Forest. There were a lot of bubble teams who lost in one possession game – such as Xavier’s 2 point loss to Marquette, Baylor’s 2 point loss to Texas Tech and SMU’s 3 point loss to Clemson. And there were a few teams like Indiana and Kansas that were hoping to make a statement in the conference tournament only to watch as their opponents (Oregon and Arizona) ran away late.

I joked in my viewing guide that hopefully I won’t be awake for the nightowl game between Utah State and UNLV. Well, the Aggies are up 8 with 4 minutes to play – really wasn’t expecting to be still awake. I am so tired, yet very content. The NCAA data is ready, I have a starting point for my bracketology, the site is somewhat caught up, and Purdue won. The Lunatic will sleep happily tonight.