Stomp The Lunatic

Virginia looked like they got a huge opportunity on Saturday night, when fellow ACC school, NC State took out the #1 seed in the East.  Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, their game on Sunday was against Michigan State.

The Spartans jumped out quickly to a 15-4 lead and never looked back.   While the Cavaliers managed to close the gap through their amazing defense, the Michigan State’s defense was just as good.  And Travis Trice hit a big three pointer with about 2 and a half minutes left to give the Spartans a large enough lead to hold off Virginia.

So, for the first time since 2004, a region will have neither of its top 2 seeds in the Sweet 16.   Congratulations to Michigan State on a fantastic victory.

What a fun way to end the evening – even if it did go a little late.  But Notre Dame came out in the overtime period hitting three pointers, and managed to put away a pesky Butler team.

Congratulations to Gregg Williams – who is our current leader at 400 points – followed closely by 20 points by Gus Woodburn, Chris Franklin, Jason Lee, Kynan Bush, and Debbe Evans.

In the Upset Pool – Gus Woodburn is leading with 205 points, followed by Greg Williams and Jason Lee.

But there is lots more basketball to be played.

What a crazy ending to regulation in the Notre Dame / Butler game to end the night on Saturday.  Just really glad for Auguste from Notre Dame – he made a great rebound which seemed to send the game to overtime and then got called for a double dribble to set up the exciting final plays and blocked shot.

The Irish and Bulldogs keep providing an answer to each other – should be a fun overtime.

The first #1 seed has been taken out – and it happens during the first weekend.  North Carolina State withstood an amazing flurry from Villanova and the three point shooting of Darrun Hilliard, but Hilliard’s 9 points in the final 90 seconds wasn’t enough to catch the Wolfpack – who calmly hit their free throws and advanced to the Sweet 16!!!!

Fantastic win for the North Carolina State Wolfpack!

North Carolina State has done what Cincinnati and Ohio State could not do – unlike the earlier games where the underdog kept it close in the first half until watching the favorite pull away, the Wolfpack have take a 4 point lead into halftime and now have extended it to a 9 point lead with 11:30 to play.   Pretty exciting game!!!!!

The Wildcats move on in a very physical game.  Was laughing as I listened to the announcers trying to say that Cincinnati might have given teams a blueprint of how to beat Kentucky from how they played in the first half.

And maybe that is true – but basically, Kentucky’s starters shot poorly today, they started the game slowly, and even showed a little bit of surprising undisciplined play when they got caught up in the chippy play and got called for a technical foul.  And still, they were winning by 17 points until Cincinnati scored the last 4 points of the game when Kentucky was basically just running out the clock.

I sure hope this isn’t a coronation ceremony as the Wildcats destroy teams one by one.  And I am definitely looking forward to see what some of the more talented teams can do.  But this was not a road-map to how to beat Kentucky – Cincinnati kept playing that physical matchup zone, and watched the close game slowly move to a double digit defeat.

The UCLA Bruins.   It was guaranteed as the first game of the day pitted UCLA and UAB to play – and it was the Bruins taking care of business running away

Just to give everyone a reminder – here is the reaction of the press to the selection committee choosing UCLA.

Myron Medcalf – Selection Committee just gave UCLA a slot for trying hard.  Hand them a blue ribbon, too.

Dana O’Neil – UCLA…   I’m just so confused.

Eamonn Brennan – Apparently all that matters is that you play a tough nonconference schedule, even if you score 7 points in a first half.

Joe Lunardi – First thoughts: I missed on Indiana; they missed on UCLA.

Jeff Borzello – So the committee really put UCLA’s resume, Temple’s resume and Colorado State’s resume side-by-side-by-side and chose UCLA? Hahaha. OK.

Doug Gottlieb (on the actual selection show) – UCLA safely in is a joke to me.  It makes no sense.

Doug Gottlieb (also on the show) – There’s not a reasonable person in the country who believes UCLA belongs in the 68-team field.

In fact, Gottlieb actually felt it necessary three separate times throughout the show to state how bad of a decision it was to include UCLA – including his only question to the Selection Committee chair – and I use question loosely – it was more of a statement of how wrong the committee was followed by a request for the chair to comment.

 

Well – the first team to the Sweet 16 is the team that everyone said doesn’t belong in the tournament.  Somewhere, Selection Committee Chair Scott Barnes and the rest of the committee are smiling – the Bruins have validated their choice.   UCLA was definitely worthy of making the Tournament – and the Bruins will still be playing next week.

 

Friday almost was a perfect day for the top seeds.  It took the last game of the night to end that streak when Dayton continued their success from the play-in game and upset Providence to go to the Round of 32.

This left us with a four-way tie at the top of the pool.  Donna Woodburn, Greg Williams, Chris Franklin and Kynan Bush all did fantastic in the first round – getting 28 of the 32 games correct.   They are followed closely by 14 people who are only 10 points behind – including my 8 year old son, Charlie (he will be thrilled to know that he is in the top 10).

In the upset pool, Donna Woodburn is leading with 147 – closely followed by first day leader Brian Lawton at 138, and Greg Williams and John Woodburn at 136.

The Lunatic is quietly lurking around in a large tie for 43rd place at 250 points.  I am pretty happy to have got 25 games right – but that will not be enough.   While that is a good showing for the Lunatic, we still know the inevitable story is that he will be STOMPED!!!!

After a wild Thursday, the first 8 games of today have been won by the favorites.   There has been a couple close ones – including awesome efforts from two of the 13 seeds – as UC-Irvine was beating Louisville with less than a minute to play before giving up the last 4 points to lose by a basket.  And Valparaiso had a chance to hit a three pointer in their final possession before losing the ball and the game to Maryland.

So – still some exciting games.  But this time, the favorites seem to be the ones surviving.   We will have to see if the evening games continue to hold that form.

Brian Lawton earned the lead in both the standard and upset pools by getting 14 of 16 games correct.

Considering that not a single one of our 361 entries was able to correctly get all of the first 5 games correct, being able to survive the day with only 2 losses is an incredible achievement!!!!

Great job of picking the games, Brian!!!!