It could just be the excitement that the tournament is just around the corner. It could be a little bit of being overwhelmed with all the things that I would like to get done over the next two weeks. It could be simply as the Lunatic gets older, the idea of sleep deprivation becomes scarier and scarier.

I was so excited that I finally got the pool entry forms tested on Wednesday, because it meant I could move on to getting all the statistics I use to do my bracketology (and eventually provide all the data to you).

So Thursday, as I thought briefly about starting to figure out my data pull scripts, I realized that Purdue was hosting Michigan State in a big game – I just needed to watch it. I will just work on the site after the game. After Braden Smith’s last second three pointer ended up missing giving the Spartans an impressive 2 point road victory at Mackey Arena, the Lunatic decided that basketball stats would have to wait for another evening – it was time for sleep. I can always work on it on Friday.

So Friday, I come home, enjoy watching the Pitt and 9-1-1 while we eat dinner, and get a text from my son Charlie at college. He has amazing tickets at Atlantic Union Bank Center to watch his Dukes play against Coastal Carolina. So, of course, I changed my mind, and instead of opening up a Jupyter Notebook to pull the schedules, I turned to ESPN.com to watch the game.

Would it have made more sense to watch the Michigan / Illinois game if I was going to watch games instead of pulling basketball box scores. Of course, it would make more sense to watch two of the teams that might be able to win the national championship. But Michigan was already up 8 points, on their way to a 14 point road victory over Illinois. So, I watched the Dukes. Sadly for me and my son, the Chanticleers’ Joshua Beadle drove to the free throw line, and hit a step-back fade-away jumper with 0.9 seconds left to give Coastal a 1 point victory and end the Dukes’ 6 game winning streak. Another evening gone – the Lunatic needed to go to sleep. After all, there will certainly be late nights in March – I am too old to start this sleep deprivation in February. I can pull the stats over the weekend.

So, I wake up Saturday morning, get dressed, and immediately head out to the Club at Viniterra. We have had so much snow and ice in Richmond, so with the temperature being in the mid-60s, I couldn’t resist a nice day on the course. I really struggled through the first five holes, but managed to get a birdie on the 12th hole, a 140 yard par 3, on my way to scoring a 96. So, now that it is almost 4:30 in the afternoon, I figure I probably should start getting my stats.

Or – I could blog. Lets face it, that is my passion anyways. I could watch #2 Arizona vs #14 Kansas – but the Wildcats have already jumped out to a 23-8 lead on the Jayhawks. Maybe I can watch #4 Iowa State play #16 Texas Tech, especially since I am interested to see how the Red Raiders can do without their star JT Toppin, who sadly had a season-ending knee injury.

Should I be pulling basketball box scores? Probably. At this moment, I don’t know if the NCAA has made any changes to their website. If everything is the same, it should only take me 5-6 hours to pull down all the games. But if they have made changes, my codes might no longer work, and then the Lunatic will be sad.

Maybe I will look into it. But most likely, I will watch the Cyclones and Red Raiders play while I continue to blog. So, as I said, I am a little distracted. Welcome to the mind of the Crazed Lunatic!!!