Last night, many people were enjoying one of the best rivalries in college basketball as North Carolina hosted Duke in Chapel Hill.  And while Joel Berry II was scoring 28 points to lead the Tar Heels to a 90-83 victory over the Blue Devils, quietly in Nashville, Tennessee was a game that might have had more significance – especially for the two small schools that were playing.  In that game, the Gamecocks from Jacksonville State upset Tennessee Martin 66-55 to win the Ohio Valley Championship game.  This victory makes the Gamecocks not only the first team in 2017 to earn an invitation to the 2017 NCAA Tournament, but it is also the first time in the school’s history that they will be dancing!!!  It also means one other thing – IT MUST BE MARCH!!!!!

And as college basketball teams play their conference championship games to kick of March, 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 2017 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.   I might even do my best to rant about the bubble and the conference tournaments this year – depending on how long it takes me to get all the results file ready.

I have sent out the initial email to invite everyone to join us – but as always, my skills at keeping a distribution list are worst – fortunately, many of you already know where the site is so you don’t need the email to join!!!!   If you think there is someone I missed, please feel free to forward this along – everyone is welcome!!!

Get ready!!!!  The Madness is Coming!!!!