Stomp The Lunatic

Might be a new year, but it sure looks like the Lunatic curse is alive as well.  My upset picks had Duke going to the Championship game – so of course, that would mean that the Atlantic Sun champions from Mercer would take them out in the Blue Devil’s first game.

That also ended our last perfect bracket of the tournament.  Dooomps managed to go 16 of 16 in day 1.  But Mercer ended that run of perfection early.  The first day leader is still hanging onto the lead in a tie with Michael Strange and Kevin Flippen.   And the Lunatic’s 7 year old son, Charlie, has managed to get into the small group tied for 4th (of course, he also has Duke in the finals, so his fame this year might be fleeting).

So, since the Lunatic knows that his teams are probably doomed – lets go for crazy upsets as well.   Let Wichita State, Virginia, Iowa State, and UCLA – none of the top 4 protected seeds that have played today have managed to win by large amounts – the underdogs are sticking around – if the top seeds aren’t careful, they might suffer the same fate as the Blue Devils……

 

First Connecticut and St. Joseph’s go to overtime.   Then, St. Louis comes back from 16 points back with just 8 minutes left to send North Carolina State to overtime.

OT just starting – sure hope all those missed FTs don’t cost the Cinderella Wolfpack the game.  Hate to think that a team had as many chances to wrap the game up as they did.

And over in the last remaining 7 pm game, 12 seed North Dakota State has a 6 point lead over Oklahoma.  How fun is this!!!!  Just fantastic games!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like we have 357 entries this year – so should be a lots of fun!!!!!!!   And if the afternoon is any indication, with Dayton and Harvard pulling exciting upsets and Albany hanging with #1 seed Florida in the first half, this should be a fantastic tournament!

On the lighter side of things, since the Ohio State loss crushed my billion dollar dream, I was curious about how the rest of the pool is doing.

If this was the Billion Dollar Bracket contest, through just 6 games, there are only 15 perfect brackets.  Considering there are 57 more games to go, I imagine that Warren Buffett’s billion dollars is going to be safe.

But you don’t have to be perfect to win the Stomp the Lunatic contest – all you have to do is beat our resident crazy person (well, and the rest of the pool…..)

Good luck to everyone in Stomping the Lunatic!!!!!

For those degenerate gamblers out there looking for an edge, you no longer need to wait.   The Lunatic has proudly started picking the Play-in games.  He actually really wants to spend more time analyzing the main games – so he has only picked tomorrow’s games (wouldn’t want to not get the page out before the games).

So, go ahead and enjoy the picks.  Just remember the Lunatic’s typical disclaimers.  I get stomped every year in the pool, and I don’t believe I have ever walked away from a Vegas sportsbook ahead.  However, I do seem to do well when it is just mythical money on the line – as I did last year.

 

Now that the email is out, let me officially welcome everyone to the 2014 Stomp the Lunatic Contest!!!!!

Just a quick reminder that even if you have entered before, my system does not remember previous years – so you will need to register again.  Once you register, that will take you directly to your main login page where you can choose to enter your picks – or come back later and enter after doing some research.

We don’t pick the first 4 games, so your picks need to be into the system before the first game on Thursday, March 20th (to be on the safe side, I normally recommend 11:45 am EST….).

For those of you who want to do tons of research, the Schedule Excel spreadsheet is updated to include today’s 5 conference championship games as well – so it now has the complete season.

For those of you who don’t want to dig through all that data but want a quick way to look at how the teams did this year, check out the 2014 Cheat Sheet – which gives you information like records, RPI, Adjusted Scoring Margin, and how they did against the top teams.

No matter how you pick your teams, I am sure that there will be plenty of you to give the Lunatic a good and thorough stomping.    Good luck to everyone in Stomping the Lunatic!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Well – the site is up and running.  If you just can’t wait, the bracket is up and you can go and enter your picks for the Stomp the Lunatic contest!!!!!

I will send out an official email tonight inviting everyone, but it has been a very busy basketball day for me – and after the shock of some of the seeding by the committee, I need a few moments to gather myself.   While I know when I was going over their resume, I thought it looked a little light for a top 25 team, I didn’t think SMU would be the first team (as long as I remember) to be ranked in the last top 25 polls of the season and not make the tournament.

And don’t even get me started about the Midwest bracket and Louisville as a four seed!!!  Wow!!!!!!!!  But I digress!

The brackets are out – and lots of fun basketball will happen over the next three weeks!!!!!!   Good luck in stomping the lunatic!!!!!

Well, Kentucky almost taking out Florida, as well as Michigan State beating Michigan made me have to make some late changes.

But my Bracketology page is now on the site.  One of these years, I will have to do this a little differently than just quickly putting something out before the committee.

Especially, around the bubble, I put teams more where I thought the committee would than where I would put teams.  I am hoping the committee proves me wrong with Green Bay.  I would much rather see a regular season champion get the last spot – but when comparing resumes, my last team in, the Dayton Flyers, have more quality wins.  I think that will matter.

Anyways, the moment is almost here.  The selection committee is about to announce the field of 68 – and then, my favorite tournament begins.   MARCH MADNESS IS AWESOME!!!!!!

The NIT might be a difficult tournament to get into this year.  That is because the automatic bids to regular season champions that don’t win their conference tournament or an NCAA at-large bid get an automatic birth into the NIT.

And sadly for the regular season champions, they are falling like flies.   Here is the list of top seeds that lost so far.

• America East – Vermont
• Atlantic 10 – St. Louis (will still get an NCAA bid)
• Atlantic Sun – Florida Gulf Coast (although at least they lost to their co-champ Mercer)
• Big 12 – Kansas (will still get an NCAA bid)
• Big East – Villanova (will still get an NCAA bid)
• Big South – High Point
• Horizon – Green Bay
• MAAC – Iona
• NEC – Robert Morris
• OVC – Belmont
• Patriot – Boston University
• Southern – Davidson
• SWAC – Southern (although they apparently are not eligible due to academic reasons)

And there is still lots of games still to be played.  14 top seeds are still playing in their tournaments.

Right now, that means only Delaware (Colonial), Wichita State (MVC), North Dakota State (Summit) and Gonzaga (WCC) have so far managed to win their conference tournaments (guess we could throw Atlantic Sun co-champ Mercer into the mix).

Normally, the top seeds of the small conferences do better than this.  But this year, with all these teams that dominated their conferences in the regular season are losing their bids and falling into the at-large pool, it does make you start to wonder if the Ivy league has the right idea to give their invitation to the dance to their regular season champion…

I know it will never happen – it is all about money.  But it hurts to see all these teams work so hard to win their conference only to have those dreams dashed in a 3-4 day tournament.