Stomp The Lunatic – Page 115 – Just another WordPress site

Let the games begin!

March 15, 2012

The games have started – kicking off potentially the most exciting 4 days of college basketball. In 63 games, we will crown the 2012 NCAA Champion.

And that will mean we will also crown the 2012 Stomp the Lunatic contest. This year, we unofficially have a record 360 entries. I will check the database and my home emails for any last second entries or issues. It is probably also a good idea for you to go in the standings and check your picks.

So enjoy the games, enjoy the blog, and good luck to everyone in Stomping the Lunatic.
The Lunatic’s Picks are revealed

March 15, 2012

It is late as always when the Lunatic gets his picks done. In his “sane” picks, the Lunatic is picking Michigan State to win it all. The Spartans are the only major conference team that won a share of their regular season championship and followed it up by winning their conference tournament. They have the look and feel of a team ready to win. Not to mention that I have learned not to bet against Tom Izzo in March.

In my “insane” picks, I will take North Carolina to win it all. My other potential choices would be to go with Kentucky (not a fan of the one-and-done system), Syracuse (never liked Boeheim after the season when they didn’t make the tournament being criticized for their strength of schedule – and he claimed that he shouldn’t need to look for tough road non-conference games because the Big East was hard enough) and Kansas (who has burned me in the past when I have chosen them). When the season started, I thought the Tar Heels were the most talented, and so I am going to stick with that. Plus, picking UNC gives me the excuse to be totally insane and predict Wichita State will upset Kentucky and make their way to the Final Four.

We already have 249 entries – and we always get a ton of late comers on Thursday morning – so we should have a really great pool (and likely to be competitive as always). Good luck in Stomping the Lunatic!!!!
Only can hope

March 14, 2012

That the rest of the tournament is as good as tonight’s play-in games were. Congratulations to Western Kentucky for coming back from down 16 with a little over 4 1/2 minutes left. Then, if you thought that was amazing, BYU managed to fall behind by 25 points to Iona before storming back in the second half to win.

Great games so far. Only can hope it continues.
The Handicapping Page has started with the Play-in games

March 13, 2012

Maybe it is the high of only missing one team in my bracket. Maybe it is because I need to redeem myself from last year’s debacle. Maybe because it is my only chance to win at something – even if it is imaginary.

Regardless the reason, I have started the 2012 Handicapping Page with Tuesday night’s games. Sorry, Chris!!! I have probably doomed BYU by picking them to beat Iona. I should know by watching the tournament for years to expect that the team which all the experts doesn’t belong in the tournament is about to go on a run proving the Committee was right. But on paper, BYU is the better team…..

To see all of the Lunatic’s Handicapping, just click on the 2012 Handicapping link.
Schedules Updates and Cheat Sheets Added

March 12, 2012

Since everything went smoothly this year, I am ahead of schedule on site maintenance – keep fingers crossed for that to continue.

So, I have updated the schedule file to have the championship games from Sunday, as well as all the conference standings. Also, for those who don’t want to look at tons of data and build a model, but would still like some summary statistics, I have added the 2012 cheat sheets. These have on them, summary stats on the two teams side by side for comparison purposes.

Hope both are useful to you – good luck to everyone!!!!
The Field of 68 is set!!!!

March 11, 2012

I will probably have some commentary on the field at some point – but I was relatively pleased with the teams that made it into the tournament.

Since the brackets are released, I have set up the entry forms, and so everything is set for you. Like last year, click on the register page to sign up for the 2012 Stomp the Lunatic contest – and that page will lead you to the entry form. You can also click on the login page once you have registered to make any necessary edits to your picks.

If you have any questions, just send me an email at thomas@tehodgson.com. Also, please let me know if you notice any errors in the bracket, or are just having trouble with the site in general.

Good luck to everyone. It should be a really fun tournament this year – there are lots of really talented teams that could win it all. And I am sure that everyone will STOMP THE LUNATIC!!!!
Tom’s Poorly Done Bracketology is here

March 11, 2012

That’s right – I have done horribly the last couple of years at predicting the bracket. And with the amount of time I spent on it, I find it hard to believe I have done any better this year. Still, it has become a tradition to see how badly the Lunatic does at this (although I like to believe it is because I would pick better teams).

I am hoping I am wrong this year. When I did the math, the first team I ended up leaving out was Drexel. St. Bonaventure’s surprise victory of the Atlantic 10 looks like it has shrunk the bubble just enough.

So, I have made my jabs at the main bracketologists – who I am sure could care less what I think. And have at least gotten my picks out their before the tournament is selected. Lets see if someone who spends 4 hours on a Sunday can predict better than the people who follow college basketball all year long.

Just check out the 2012 Bracketology link.
Wow – who would have expected

March 11, 2012

Kentucky loses the SEC to Vanderbilt, UNC loses the ACC to Florida St, and Xavier gets beaten by St. Bonaventure in the Atlantic 10. Would not have gone with that trifecta.
2012 Schedule and Results are available

March 11, 2012

As many of you know, one of my insane features is that I try to provide people with data about the teams in case they want to do research on the teams. Each year, we get several people who have demonstrated the power of statistics by building models in order to predict the games. Some of them have been extremely successful with this – especially Bill Kahn with his Bradley-Terry models, showing that even something extremely unpredictable as sports can be forecasted through good statistical techniques. But the part of this that has made me happy – and why I do this – is because a few people who were not statisticians but were taking a stats training course at work used this data for their class project and ended up having some success – including our 2006 champion, David Shaddick.

So, since that point, I decided to provide the scores to everyone in an attempt to provide people as much of a chance to try to leverage data to make their decisions. I realize that most of you will probably spend three to five minutes just looking at the teams and figuring who will do best – I probably don’t need a model to decide that the number 1 seeds will beat the 16 seeds… In fact, I typically spend so much effort maintaining the site that I just randomly pick late Wednesday evening.

However, if I can give people a chance to try to learn something about statistics in a very fun environment, it is well worth the effort. So, just click on 2012 Schedule in one of the menus and get an Excel spreadsheet with summary box score information for each game for every Division I team. If I get time, I will try to add the standings sheet that was in the 2011 file.

My classic caveats on this data are the following: I have only checked that standings match – this year with the NCAA RPI page. I don’t have time to error check over 5000 box scores. I probably have a glitch in the RPI formula because all the records match by home, away and neutral games but a couple of the 200+ RPI schools have flip-flopped in the standings. Still figure with all the records right and the top 200+ right, it is close enough….. By the way, I am relatively pleased by this – if you look at the official site, and then look at CBS, ESPN and a couple other sites that post RPI numbers, none of them match – it is fascinating for something that seems so simple to calculate. Also, obviously, the championship games being played today are not in the file. If you notice something terribly wrong, let me know – no promises I have time to fix it, but at least everyone will know.

Enjoy the data!!!!
Random thoughts about the week
March 9, 2012
So very excited about the conference tournaments – they always bring such great storylines.    I am strangely turning towards enjoying the tournaments. I have always believed that it seems so unfair that a team can go 16-2 in their conference, win the regular season, and then not get to go to the tournament when they get upset in their conference tournament.

However, the concept is growing on me. There is something strangely appealing about the concept. If you want your season continue, it is simple – win your next game.   And so many of the conference finals have been really great games to watch because of that.

Some of my thoughts so far about Championship Week:

The entire bubble let out a sigh of relief when Murray State took the Ohio Valley championship with a last second basket against Tennessee State.

Then, they held their breath again until Creighton finally finished off Illinois State in overtime at the Missouri Valley’s Arch Madness.

VCU made all of Richmond happy as they held off Drexel to take the Colonial. I really hope the committee lets Drexel dance as well.   It would seem a shame to not let in a team that won 25 of its last 27 games.

Valparaiso ended any chances of another amazing run from Butler. But then sadly got destroyed by Detroit in the championship game.

An amazing story in the Sun Belt. In January, Western Kentucky fires their coach after going 5-11 and seeing attendance at home games plummet. Interim coach Ron Harper goes 4-7 and gets named full time coach for turning the program in the right direction. Harper and the Hilltoppers reward that decision by winning their next six games – including coming back from being down double digits in the Sun Belt championship game against North Texas and will be dancing. Remember – just keep winning, and you get to keep playing.

Harvard earns a bid to the tournament while simply watching the Princeton vs. Penn game. Thanks to a great regular season and the Ivy league rewarding their regular season champion with the NCAA invite, they did their work last weekend to claim at least a share of the title, and then enjoyed watching one of their biggest rivals do them a favor and prevent Penn from tying them.

South Dakota State earns its first ever NCAA bid in an exciting overtime game against Western Illinois. And while this was a wonderful story for the Jackrabbits, you have to feel for WIU.   They had a 9 point lead with 7 1/2 minutes left, and could only muster up 8 more points the rest of the game – including the 5 minute OT – watching the opportunity for their school’s first ever invitation to the dance slip away.

I am not a fan of Syracuse – in fact, I normally root against them (long story). But I have to tremendously thank the Orangemen for beating UConn this afternoon – simply so that I don’t have to go through an entire weekend of listening to the press ask if the Huskies can repeat their unlikely 5 game run to win the Big East Championship.

Is it possible for multiple teams to get a bid from the Pac 10, and have neither one of them be the regular season champion.   Washington found a way to lose to Oregon State today – making the pundits question if the Huskies will be in the tournament.

Finally, it sadly looks like the longest drought will continue. Northwestern lost in OT to Minnesota in a game they desparately needed. When the Wildcats needed just a few baskets to save their season, they couldn’t find one. They went 1-6 with 2 turnovers in the last 7 1/2 minutes of the game, and then repeated that performance in OT as they watched the Gophers slowly pull away.

And I am probably missing something that was a big moment of the week. But enough rambling for now – need to go cheer for my Boilers – as they are starting their Big 10 tournament game against Nebraska.