Stomp The Lunatic

That was one of the strangest endings I have ever seen!Butlercomes up with a great play to get a layup with 2.2 seconds to take a one point lead. Then, on a play where both players were sprinting for a pass, they call a foul on Pitt. I wasn’t sure how you call a foul in that situation – and yet, in the replay, you can see that the contact pushed the Pitt player to the side. Then, Pitt misses the second FT, Matt Howard gets the rebound, and in an attempt to heave the ball towards his basket, gets hit across the arms by a Pitt player. I am also not sure how you call a foul in that situation – yet, he clearly reached in. At least the refs were consistent.

Needless to say, Howard hits the first FT, intentionally misses the second so that the last 0.8 seconds can tick off – andButlerhas destroyed another perfectly good bracket. For the second year in a row, the Horizon conference champions have knocked off a #1 seed from the mighty Big East. I don’t even know if you can callButlera Cinderella at this point. All I know is I would not want to be Wisconsin or Kansas State – knowing that the mighty Butler Bulldogs are waiting for them in the Sweet 16. They have now won both games in the final second – and after last year’s flurtation with history, this year’s team seems intent on sticking around for a while and seeing if they can finish what escaped them last year.

I don’t even care that it totally took out my insane bracket – where I think I had Pitt going to the championship, since I thought it was too crazy to have Purdue do it. GoButlerBulldogs!!!!!! Keep fighting for the little guys!!!!!!!!

OK – so it was guaranteed. But Richmond officially becomes the first candidate to be Cinderella. They dominatedMoreheadStateto make their way to the Sweet 16. The other games have been very entertaining – especially theSan Diego St/Templedouble overtime game. And of course,Butleris givingPittsburgheverything they can handle. Looking forward to watching the end of that game.

Of course, Brent Peterson is unstoppable – he has continued his amazing streak by getting the first four games of today correct.

So every year there is a bunch of whining about the selection committee and who gets left out of the tournament. I do it as well. Everyone can second guess decisions – and make statements about how they think a certain team belongs and a certain team does not.

So, lets look at two of the major complaints. 1) There were 7 teams with 13 or more losses in the tournament – which is a record number of teams this bad. My only argument would be is that only one of those teams was in the play-in games – I question the seeding more than anything else. But here is the reality.

• Marquette(14 losses) – destroyed regular      season Atlantic 10 champion Xavier
• Michigan(13 losses) – destroyedTennessee
• Tennessee (14 losses) – lost pretty badly to      Michigan, but I still have a hard time saying that a team with 7 Top 50      wins didn’t belong.
• Penn St(14 losses) – lost on a buzzer beater byTemple
• Illinois(13 losses) – destroyed UNLV
• USC (14 losses) – lost to a VCU team that turned      around and beat up onGeorgetown
• Michigan St(14 losses) – lost by 2 points      to a very good UCLA team

All in all, considering that 3 of them are still playing, and 2 of these teams lost by just a basket, it looks like these teams all supported the Selection Committee’s decision that they were perfectly capable of playing at the level of the other tournament teams.

2) How can they choose VCU and UAB? Well, since VCU has now won two games, and UAB was a regular season champion, you can’t fault these decisions either.

At the end of the day, the Selection Committee creates a great tournament. There are some questionable decisions – likeRichmondas a 12 seed – that I feel was laziness due to the Sunday championship. And I still would have hadAlabama, VT, andColoradoin. But it is hard to say the Selection Committee was outright wrong – every year, it is a great tournament.

 

Congratulations to Brent Peterson – who went 29 for 32 – giving himself a 2 game separation on the rest of the field. Outstanding picks!!!!

However, Josh Martin, Kevin Flippen, Matt Fischer, Stephanie Palermo, Steve Glass, Trent Hodges and Don Jr all had 27 games correct (also very impressive), and 15 people had 26 games correct. It always amazes me how well everyone does in the first round! So, there are lots of talented people closely chasing Brent.

In the Upset Pool, our leader is Kevin Flippen – whose 147 points was led by correctly picking the VCU,Richmond, Morehead St upset streak in the Southwest. Brent Peterson is 1 point behind, followed closely by Matt Fischer and Steve Glass.

Both of the Lunatic’s picks are sadly struggling along at 220 points. And I am sure I lost an Elite 8 team somewhere for having faith in the magic of Tom Izzo andMichiganState. And I second guessed myself on Gonzaga andButler- OK, I could probably identify so many places where I went wrong. There should be a lot of you crushing the Lunatic – hopefully, that will be the way things stay.

I know that they were supposed to win – but still happy to see Purdue come out and play like they are capable of – regardless of who you play – holding them to just 43 points is an impressive feat. Hopefully, they keep playing well. That being said, both my picks and my handicapping our crashing and burning in horrific style. And it looks like it will continue withIllinoisdestroying UNLV.

Brent Peterson is still hot. Not only did he get 15 of 16 right – he was perfect today until just a few moments ago when Xavier lost toMarquette. We will have to see what the last 4 games of the first round bring. Hopefully, it will bring a couple more upsets and some great games.

Unfortunately, the evening games weren’t as exciting as the afternoon. But there was still some good ones. WatchingMichiganStatecome back like that – started to have a feeling they would pull out yet another amazing victory. Credit has to go to UCLA for holding on. We also had one of the locations watch an 11 (Gonzaga), 12 (Richmond) and 13 (Morehead St) all win their games to advance to the Round of 32.

I am sorry that I am a little behind with everything. But I promise to catch up over the weekend, as well as send out an e-mail on the overall standings.

Until then – congratulations to Brent Peterson and Stephanie Palermo – who both managed to get 15 of 16 games right today to be the early leaders of the pool!!!!! The Lunatic has not done well – but that is to be expected!!!!! Lets all STOMP THE LUNATIC!!!!!