Stomp The Lunatic

But there are obviously other people who are watching the Ohio State / Kansas game closely.  We won’t mention all the top of the standings, but it seems fair to mention who win win.

The biggest Kansas fan will be Kayla Lindvall – who will win the Stomp the Lunatic contest if the Jayhawks win tonight and also beat Kentucky on Monday.

David Caldwell is a Jayhawks fan only for tonight – then he will need Kentucky to win Monday night to win the main pool.

Jennifer Carter is the Buckeyes fan only for tonight – our current leader in the pool has Kentucky beating Ohio State in the championship, since she is in the lead – she simply needs her teams to keep winning.

And of course, our upset champion Keith Schleicher would sweep both pools if his Buckeyes win the NCAA Championship.  We all know the tragic twist of this story – and the person who would most benefit in the main pool would be Andrea Zimmerman.

Of course, considering the Buckeyes are up 11 points right now, Jennifer, Keith and Andrea are probably happier at the moment.  But there is still a lot of basketball to be played.

The winner of the Blue-grass Battle, and more importantly (although maybe not to them) the first spot in Monday’s Championship game belongs to the #1 seed Kentucky Wildcats.  Every time Louisville made a charge, Kentucky seemed to have the answer.  And then, the Wildcats played stifling defense over a 5 minute stretch to extend their lead to a comfortable place where they could get away with just trading baskets.

Although I have to admit that I am still confused on the ending, Louisville seemed to have this weird idea in their head that they could trap Kentucky in the back court to force a turnover, and then would foul after they crossed half court.  Except whenever Kentucky got across half court, they would aggressively attack the basket and walk away with a breakaway dunk.  And then, when Kentucky got their last dunk, Louisville looked like they just gave up – they seemed to walk it up the court, then wait to get into their offensive set, and then took so much time to get a missed three pointer.  By that point, it made sense not to foul – there wasn’t enough time after wasting 15-20 seconds to come back.

So, the Wildcats will now await the winner of the Buckeyes and Jayhawks to try to finally get Calapari his first ever NCAA title – as well as add their names into the history book of many championship teams from Lexington, Kentucky.

The Lunatic will now cruelly remove the scenarios involving Louisville – as they are no longer actual scenarios.  If the un-official scenarios are accurate (and I have read them correctly – I am trying to go quickly before Charlie goes to bed :-), even more painful congratulations are in order.  That is because all 4 scenarios remaining say that we have a winner of the upset pool – Keith Schleicher.  Unfortunately, this victory is bitter-sweet for Keith – since Keith entered the pool for fun this year.    This will open the door for either Rick Flynn (rooting for Ohio State) and Keith Lancette (rooting for Kansas) to take the big prize.

Apparently, something is putting random blogs saying weird stuff like “Your site has so much information.  It is the best article I have ever read” and then creates a name that is actually a link to a site.

I will try to keep on top of it and delete it.  But just to be on the safe side, don’t click on any names to see who they are – it might lead you to a fake site.

Also, I apologize if I accidentally deleted a real person’s post – I got aggressive after seeing over 30 of them on just deleting all.  If I deleted your blog on accidentally, please feel free to post it again – and send me a reminder not to delete it.  🙂

The links are on the table of contents to the left.   As always, these are un-official results.  While I believe that these are all done correctly, I have not gone through the trouble to validate the calculations.
However, if you were wondering if you have a team you should be rooting for – this should at least give you your best chances at winning.

Good luck to everyone who has a chance at winning the pool!!!  And enjoy the games on Saturday!!!!

My apologies to all of you who have probably been searching through the standings page to see where you are in the Upset Standings.  It didn’t even occur to me when I was doing my updates that I was searching through the main standings for the Upset leaders.

Well – no longer.  It might be extremely late – but the Upset Standings are now a link on the menu.

 

And all our leaders in the pool……

Not much to write about the games.  Kentucky jumped on Baylor early and never looked back.  Kansas and UNC was a much closer battle – tied at half, Kansas would get up a few baskets, and UNC would fight their way back – and then, in the final four minutes, it was all Jayhawks.  In that crunch time, it was painful obvious how badly the Tar Heels missed their star point guard Kendall Marshall – after some turnovers and a bad foul by the freshman replacement (if you are going to foul a breakaway, make sure he doesn’t also score the layup).  And in the end, the Jayhawks took advantage and earned their trip to New Orleans.

That leaves us with two re-matches for the Final Four.  The Bluegrass State will be going  crazy as the Big East conference tournament Louisville will get a second chance at SEC regular season champion Kentucky – this time on a neutral court instead of the Wildcats’ Rupp Arena.   And in the other game, Big 10 regular season co-champion Ohio State will get a second chance against the Big 12 regular season champion Kansas – although this time it will not only be at a neutral court instead of the Jayhawks’ Phog Allen Fieldhouse, the Buckeyes will have a healthy Jared Sullinger.

At this critical time in the tournament, our leader is Jennifer Carter – out of 362 entries, Jennifer was the only person who correctly predicted that Kentucky, Louisville, Ohio State, and Kansas would be the four teams playing in New Orleans.  She is closely followed by 6 people who are just 20 points behind – Robert Shipp, Steve O’Neill, David Caldwell, Kayla Lindvall, Philip Ventrella, and Ross Vetter.

In the Upset pool, Keith Schleicher has overtaken the lead from Christina Lee.  However, Keith Lancette is closing fast riding the success of Louisville.  And in the Second Chance Pool, Shirli Zelcer and Taylor Early continued their amazing run – going 12 for 12 through the Sweet 16 and Elite 8.  They are followed by Stephen Glass – just 40 points behind.

As for the Lunatic – he has received a thorough beating, and it will only get worse.  The Lunatic picked North Carolina and Michigan State in the championship game and so can finish no better than 163rd – and there will likely be others who will pass him in the final weekend.   However, he is proud that his 2 year daughter has already beaten him using Vegas models to try to win, his mother-in-law Kate who was a mainstay on the leaderboard until her Tar Heels went down today, and even prouder of his dad, who is currently in a tie for 11th place.

Good luck to all the leaders in the pool!!!!  And congratulations to everyone who has already STOMPED THE LUNATIC!

Congratulations to the Ohio State Buckeyes.  They had an early run in the second half and then managed to keep Syracuse always in catch up mode.  Eventually, there was no more time to catch up – and the Buckeyes will be heading to the Final Four!

The Buckeyes’ victory managed to stop the Big East’s bid at having two teams in the Final Four.  Now, the only conference with two teams left is the Big 12 – who will have Baylor and Kansas see if they could do what the Big East and SEC couldn’t do.  I am sure that Kentucky and UNC will have something to say about it.  🙂

At this point, our leaders are Melissa Hartsell and Rick Flynn – who both were able to correctly pick Louisville and Ohio State to the Final Four.  Brady Meigham, TJ Acuto, Jennifer Carter and Stephen Glass are still only 40 points behind.   Christina Lee is still holding her 6 point lead in the Upset Pool on Keith Schleicher.    And Shirli Zelcer and Taylor Early remain perfect in the Second Chance Pool – followed by Stephen Glass and Nick Kindig by just 40 points.  If you are wondering who are amazing Second Chance experts are picking in the other two games, they both have Kentucky and Kansas….

 

 

Our first Final Four participate has punched their ticket.  There is something about teams that have won championships – they just find ways to win games.

In this case, Florida had a 65-54 lead with just over 8 minutes to play.  Then, the Cardinals start to come back – and with 4 minutes left and the game getting really close, Louisville’s PG Siva fouls out of the game.  But that kind of set back didn’t stop them.   And after hitting their FTs at the end of the game and defending 2 last second 3 point shots by the Gators, Louisville had finished off their 18-3 run to become the first team to earn their way to the Final Four.

Hopefully, the Syracuse – Ohio State game can have as much drama as this one did (well unless you are rooting for one of those teams – then hopefully, it will be a boring blow-out victory for your team.  🙂

 

 

At this critical juncture, the only two teams that did not claim either their regular season or conference championship is Baylor and Florida.   Interestingly enough, it is the regular season champs being more represented this year.

Big East – Regular season champ Syracuse and Tournament champ Louisville

SEC – Regular season champ Kentucky

ACC – Regular season champ North Carolina

Big 12 – Regular season champ Kansas

Big 10 – Regular season co-champ Ohio State

Should be interesting to see if Baylor and Florida can continue their run to the Final Four, or if the Final Four will be only conference champions.