Stomp The Lunatic

I know that I don’t know the whole story with these.  And the media seems supportive of the recent firings of Ben Howland from UCLA and Tubby Smith from Minnesota – so maybe there is more than meets the eye here.  But unless there is something behind the scenes going on, I just don’t get it.

Ben Howland led the Bruins to 3 straight Final Fours.  He has a losing season after losing two players early.  Then, followed with a season including an NCAA tourney win, a 19 win season where they missed the tourney, and this season where they won the Pac 12 and then got eliminated early when their 2nd best scorer got hurt and couldn’t play.  I get the fact that this is UCLA – supposedly one of the best jobs in the college ranks.  Some reports say that he alienated the Southern California AAU teams hurting recruiting.   I realize that his last four seasons might not have been the best, but they were still 91-52.  If something else is going on behind the scenes, then sure – you are UCLA, you can probably get someone equally good.  But I don’t think you fire a coach who has gone 230-105 with 3 Final Four appearances after he has just won the conference regular season title because he isn’t winning enough.

Tubby Smith’s numbers haven’t been as great as Howland’s.  However, Tubby Smith also isn’t coaching at UCLA – Minnesota isn’t this glamorous place to go and play college basketball.  In the 8 seasons before Smith took over, the Gophers had been to 1 NCAA tournament and 4 NITs.  In the 6 seasons that Smith led, the Gophers went to 3 NCAA tournaments, 2 NITs, and never had an overall losing record.   You could point to his 46-62 Big 10 record,  But that was better than the previous regime who went 47-81.  His reward for winning the school’s first NCAA Tournament game in 16 years (23 years if you go to a win that wasn’t retroactively taken back due to NCAA sanctions for academic scandal) – that’s right, he was fired for that.

Sure, there were things that might give you pause.  Smith’s teams tended to fade in February.  Howland had 2 of 4 years where he missed the tournament – which is unheard of at UCLA.  But neither was fired after one of the bad years.  Howland was fired after a Pac 12 championship, and Smith was fired after what arguably was the school’s most successful season in 16 years.

I can see the lime-light of UCLA getting another top coach – but not sure which one will be willing to be held to the unattainable standard of NCAA Tournament success every single year.  And I don’t know who in their right mind would go to Minnesota – where it is tough to recruit, have old facilities, and just cut loose a coach who was competing each year to make the tourney.

But I do know – assuming that both still want to coach – there should be a lot of teams out there who will be really happy that Howland and Smith are available to take their coaching vacancy.  Tubby Smith has 511 wins and has taken 4 different schools to the NCAA Tournament, including winning the championship at Kentucky.  Ben Howland has 398 wins and has taken 3 different schools to the NCAA Tournament – including 3 Final Fours.   Schools could do a lot of worse than this.

Congratulations to Miami FL and Duke for winning the late games tonight.  The Miami FL – Illinois game had some drama.  Shane Larkin gave the Hurricanes the lead with a very impressive step-back three pointer.  And then, when Illinois tried to answer and missed, the rebound was knocked out of bounds by the Hurricanes.  But the referee missed it and gave the ball to Miami.  At this point, the shot clock would be off so Illinois had to foul.  The Hurricanes made their FTs and made their way to the Sweet 16.  Duke just shut down the potent Creighton offense to have what looked like a relatively easy victory to advance.

At this point, the Lunatic is shocked.  That is because, in a rare sequence of events, something unheard of is happening.  After two rounds, only 3 people are stomping the Lunatic!!!!  Congratulations to our second round leaders, Steve Glass and Tonya Cole – who have taken the lead with 490 points.  Adam Davis is just 10 points behind as well as the Upset Pool leader with 224 upset points.  Then, the Lunatic is tied along with Bill Yost, Stacy Dooms, Mark Walsh, Rusty Ahles, Jason Frank, Andrew Sadow, Cheryl Hinton and Pete Schmitke just 20 points behind.

In the Upset Pool, Rick Flynn is just trailing Adam by 9 upset points in second place – followed closely by Mark Horgan (12 behind the leader), Rohit Kapoor (15 behind), and Andrew Sadow (16 behind).

Don’t worry – the Lunatic stuck his loyalty to the Big 10.  That typically breaks down at some point in the tournament.  So, there is still plenty of basketball left to complete your goal of STOMPING THE LUNATIC!!!!

And for those of you who feel like all is lost because you picked Gonzaga, Georgetown, New Mexico, Kansas State or St. Louis to win the tournament, all hope is not lost.  The Second Chance Pool is ready just for you – just log-in to the site and you will be able to enter the second chance bracket.  It is a clean slate – a chance to start anew.

OK – they are not as glamorous as the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles.   But #13 La Salle has made their way to the Sweet 16 by their 2 point victory over Ole Miss.  With time winding down, Tyrone Garland makes a tremendous drive to the basket and hit the layup to give the Explorers the win.

Although I will say that it was rather strange that Ole Miss didn’t call a time-out.  They had one remaining – why not set up a last play for the 2.5 seconds.  It probably wouldn’t have mattered since they had to travel the entire court, but the Rebels looked confused on what to do – and they ended up with a horrible last ditch effort to win the game.

Still, if it wasn’t for the amazing story about the Eagles – the #13 seed Explorers would be the Cinderella story.  By the way, it is an interesting side note that the Explorers have now made it 2 of 3 years that a team from the first four games made it to the Sweet 16.  All of us remember the other team that did that continued all the way to the Final Four – Richmond’s own VCU Rams.

Congratulations to the La Salle Explorers!!!!!!

We now officially have our Cinderella – because after knocking off #2 Georgetown, the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles decided that they were not done.  And after being down by 1 point at half-time to San Diego State, the Eagles came out and blitzed the #7 Aztecs – including some more fun dunks at the end of the game when it was clear things were out of reach.

You might wonder how historic this is – Florida Gulf Coast, in their first ever NCAA Tournament, has become the first 15 seed in the entire history of the tournament to ever make it to the Sweet 16.

You might not know who Sherwood Brown, Bernard Thompson, Brett Comer, Chase Fieler, and Eric McKnight are now.  But I guarantee you that many will be learning the names of the Florida Gulf Coast starters over the next few days.  I am sure that one important person has taken notice – Billy Donovan, the head coach of #3 seed Florida.  The Gators will be the next team hoping that they do not become a part of the Eagles run at history.

But take it from the Miami FL Hurricanes (who lost to the Eagles in November), the Georgetown Hoyas, and now the San Diego State Aztecs.   These Eagles really can soar with the best of them.

Over 46% have the Hoosiers winning the South (once again, including the Lunatic).  And so, as Temple maintained its small lead throughout the majority of the second half, many of us were starting to prepare to rip up our brackets.

Fortunately, Indiana held in their – eventually tied the game when Cody Zeller drove to the basket and was fouled – hitting his two FTs.  Then, off a missed three pointer Khalif Wyatt, Victor Oladipo was fouled in transition and hit a FT.   After another defensive stand by the Hoosiers, IU got the ball inside to Zeller, and with time winding down on the shot clock, he passed to a wide-open Oladipo at the top of the key – who calmly nailed the three-pointer to give the Hoosiers a commanding 4 point lead with 15 seconds to play.

The un-heralded part of this is the great defense that Indiana played at the end of the game.  The only points that Temple got in the final 4 minutes was two FTs from their star player.  They would never have been able to make the comeback they did without stopping Temple from scoring so often.

For Big 10 fans everywhere, the most important phrase to remember is – SURVIVE AND ADVANCE!!!!!!   Kudos go out to both Iowa State and Temple – they played amazingly great games and both almost pulled off classic upsets.  But in the end, it is the Big 10’s conference tournament champion and regular season champion who survived to play in the Sweet 16.

Hope the rest of the games continue on like this – it has been a very exciting day of basketball so far.

What an amazing game.  Ohio State looks like they have the game well under control with a 12 point lead and 8 minutes left.  Then, Iowa State goes on a 13-0 run over the next 5 minutes to take the lead.  The teams start to battle back and forth until the stage was set.

The game is tied at 75 with 29 seconds.  Ohio State lobs the ball in to Aaron Craft.  Up to this point, Craft had an un-characteristic stretch.  Despite being almost an 80% FT shooter, the Ohio State guard had recently missed the first end of a 1-and-1 twice.  Then, after being fouled on a lay-up, he missed a third FT.  If anyone was going to be the goat for the 12 point lead slipping away, it would have been Craft.

And fate now has this young man sitting with the ball around half court – holding the ball for one last shot to win the game.  As he starts to get ready to drive, he waives a teammate away to create space.  He has already decided what he is going to do.  With 2 seconds left, he fakes a drive to cause the defender to back-pedal, and then, pulls up for a three-pointer.  There is a saying that as a shooter, you have to have a short-term memory – the only memory you have is of the next shot going in.  Aaron Craft’s memory was perfect as that three-pointer went in before the buzzer and led the Buckeyes to the Sweet 16.

Thanks to Craft’s three-point shot, the Buckeyes help avoid having this year’s West region be the first one in history that did not have any of the 4 protected seeds make the Sweet 16.  And about 45% of our pool (myself included) breathed a sigh of relief that their team is still alive.  Survive and advance!

Congratulations to the Ohio State Buckeyes!!!

Every year, there seems to be one region that just goes crazy with upsets.  This year, that region appears to be the West – as we have already lost #1 Gonzaga, #3 New Mexico, #4 Kansas State, #5 Wisconsin, #7 Notre Dame, and #8 Pitt.

If I was an Ohio State fan, I would be extremely conflicted right now.

On one hand, I have to be excited that the road to the Final Four has become wide open.  At this point, if you believe the order of the seeds, the toughest opponent left in the way is #6 Arizona.  Nothing against the Wildcats, but they don’t invoke the same type of fear as maybe a Louisville (place your favorite #1 seed), Florida (place your favorite #3 seed) or Syracuse (place your favorite #4 seed) would.

On the other hand, I have now become the prohibitive favorite in a region that has seen almost all of the favorites go down unexpectedly.  The target is now squarely on the Buckeyes’ back.  It will be interesting to see how they deal with that pressure (to be fair, they handled it pretty well in the Big 10 tournament).

At this point, there are already over 53% of us who can’t see their West winner be correct – that number will go to 98% if the Buckeyes lose.   All of a sudden, the 5 people who picked Arizona, 2 people who picked Iowa State, and 1 person who picked Ole Miss might be feeling a lot better about their chances in the West.

We currently have a 4 way tie for the lead in the Standard Pool.  Our first round leader, Bill Yost, is joined by Steve Glass, Tonya Cole, and Andrew Sadow with 370 points.  Joey Ams, Kyle Kelly and Adam Searles are just 10 points behind.  And don’t look now, but the Crazed Lunatic is a part of the 12 person group tied for 8th – just 20 points behind.

In the Upset Pool, Rick Flynn leads with 197 points – followed closely by Andrew Sadow (5 points behind) and Rohit Kapoor (6 points behind).

Yes – I am as shocked as all of you that technically, at this moment, only 7 people are Stomping the Lunatic!!!!   My guess is that the Lunatic can not manage to continue this amazing feat.  And there is obviously lots of college basketball still to be played!!!!!  Plenty of time for more of you to put the Lunatic back into his rightful place….

That’s right – our first #1 seed has fallen as Gonzaga gets upset by #9 Wichita State.  Wichita State was lights out from three-point range in the second half – including hitting their last 5 three point shots that sparked a stretch where they went from being down 7 to up 5.

The biggest play I would say was a turnover with about 3 minutes to go.   Ron Baker had just hit two FTs to give Wichita State a one point lead.  Elias Harris grabbed the ball after the second made FT and tossed it to David Stockton so he could in-bound it.  Just one problem.  Harris grabbed the ball out-of-bounds and Stockton was in-bounds.  So, in essense, Harris had already put the ball in play by giving it to Stockton – and then Stockton proceeded to walk the ball out for a turnover.

Ron Baker proceeded to get the ball for Wichita State and hit a 3 pointer to give the Shockers a 4 point lead.  And then the stadium went nuts when after Gonzaga scored, Fred Vanvleet hit another three-pointer to extend the lead to 5.  At this point, the Shockers were able to finish the game off from the FT line and take out the #1 ranked team in the polls going into the tournament.

Congratulations to Wichita State for their amazing upset and earning a trip to the Sweet 16.

 

Nothing against Michigan, Michigan State, Louisville, Arizona, and Oregon.  But watching double digit blowouts is just not that exciting.  Heck – even #12 Oregon winning is a large upset over #4 St. Louis – but the Ducks 17 point victory over the Billikens had been up to this point the closest game of the day.  Not much to write about here.

But Marquette and Butler played a classic tournament game.  The Bulldogs jump out to the early half time lead.  The Golden Eagles come storming back to take the lead.  The game goes back and forth several times.  Then, with 4 seconds left, Marquette has two FTs to do what should seal up the game.  And that is exactly what Davante Gardner did – he hit the FTs and gave Marquette what appeared to be a game-ending 4 point lead.

Then, the madness begun.   Butler baseball passes the ball all the way down the field to Andrew Smith who gets a lay-up with just 1 second coming off the clock to cut the lead to 2.  Marquette inexplicably throws the ball out of bounds.  And now, the Golden Eagles are wondering if they were going to have happen to them what they did to Davidson just two days.  Of course, that threat had to be looming in their mind even more since when these two teams played earlier in the season, Butler hit a wild buzzer beater three point shot to win the game.

Lightning did not strike twice though.  Butler couldn’t get the ball in to their shooters, the ball came to Andrew Smith very far away from the basket, and he put up an awkward three-pointer that did not come close – allowing the Golden Eagles to escape again.  Their two victories add up to only 3 points – but at the end of the day, that is all you need.  Survive and advance.

Regardless, thanks to these two teams to bringing back the excitement to the games.  Don’t want to take anything away from the other 5 winners since they dominated their games and earned a well-deserved trip to the Sweet 16.  But winning by 20 points is not as fun to watch as what the Golden Eagles and Bulldogs just did.