Walter Clayton Jr got his first basket of the game, and it ties the game at 48. Florida has gone on a run as Houston now has 10+ fouls on them.
And then, Rueben Chinyelu fouled on J’Wan Roberts on a drive and slammed the ball into the ground for a technical foul. And the lead is back to 3.
And then Clayton gets the ball in the lane off the pick and roll and a pretty pass. He also makes the free throw and we are tied again with 7 to play.
Now I have a problem with how the referees called the first half.
Since they were letting people play, the teams decided to come out playing physical. And the referees have called 8 fouls (6 on Florida) in the first 4 minutes of the second half.
This includes a technical foul on the Florida bench erupting on a 2nd quick foul called on Will Richard (which was clearly a foul – but wasn’t a foul in the first half). LJ Cryer hit one of the two technical free throws, and then off the inbounds, hit a three pointer from the corner, and suddenly Houston is up 42-30.
I just don’t like that. It is not that the 6 fouls were called were wrong. They simply weren’t called in the first half. You can’t set the standard of what is a foul in the first half, and then change the definition in the second half. And while Houston has gotten the best of it so far after the technical foul, it is clearly impacting both teams (as Houston has gotten some touch fouls on them as well).
The Houston defense is relentless. The referees have put their whistles in their pockets, and so we have a rock fight!!!! The game has been physical and the teams are both playing some incredible defense.
Only 4 fouls have been called in a game that has had plenty of contact. I wouldn’t necessarily say all the contact should result to a foul – but you definitely can say that the referees are letting them play.
Houston jumped out to the early lead with about 10 minutes to play as Mylik Wilson stole the ball from Denzel Aberdeen and made the layup to give the Cougars a 16-10 lead.
But then Will Richard got hot. With 6 minutes left, he drilled a three-pointer to tie the game at 21.
Houston immediately had an answer. LJ Cryer hit a three-pointer. Ja’Vier Francis blocked a layup from Micah Handlogten. Mylik Wilson had a nice dunk off a pass from Emanuel Sharp. And then after Clayton missed a three-pointer for the Gators, Wilson hit a three-pointer to extend the lead back to 8 with 5 minutes in the half.
But Florida would keep fighting. And they got lucky that the referees had their whistles in their pockets. J’Wan Richards put up a shot in the lane and the ball hung on the rim until getting knocked to the corner by a Florida defender. After replays, it certainly looked like it should have been goaltending.
Instead, the Gators pushed the ball up the court, got the ball into Will Richard, and he drilled the three-pointer to cut the lead to 3. And that would eventually be the score that would end the half – the Cougars are up 31-28 at half-time.
Houston has 13 points off their bench as Wilson leads the Cougars with 7 points and Ja’Vier Francis has 6 points. But it is Houston’s defense that is the biggest story.
Walter Clayton Jr averages 18.5 points per game. The Cougars have him shut out – as he has gone 0-4 from the field and every one of those 4 shots has been heavily contested. Alijah Martin averages 14.6 points per game and the Cougars have held him 1-5 from the field for 2 points.
The Gators average 10.6 turnovers a game. Houston forced 9 from them in the first half. If it wasn’t for Will Richard getting hot and scoring half of the Gators points (14), this game would not be close.
The game is Houston’s pace. The game is Houston’s style. Everything favors the Cougars – but as is common in a defensive battle, it is a one-possession game.
The Cougars lead 31-28, with 20 minutes to hang on to win a national championship – should be an exciting finish to the season.
So as I looked at some articles this morning, I saw this headline by Nancy Armour from USA Today – Get with the times, NCAA – The women’s game still deserves better. Here is the link.
Nancy Armour basically keyed in on the same quotes from Geno Auriemma that I did. And she raised some great points that I would like to see.
She gave the NCAA some credit for their recent improvements such as awarding prize money in units to teams/conferences.
Her points about the contract the NCAA signed is on point – they lumped in everything else with women’s basketball, and it is a long contract going to 2032. It hinders the women’s game from really assessing what they are worth on their own.
And I loved the idea about domes. She is right that it is a horrible experience to watch a game in a dome. 68,252 fans filled the AlamoDome for Saturday’s Final Four. The women’s championship game filled Tampa’s Alamie Arena with 19,777 fans. Why not give them the chance to see how many seats they could sell in a dome? After all, more people tuned in to what South Carolina beat Caitlin Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes last year than people turning in to Connecticut beating my Boilers in the men’s championship.
But then Nancy Armour had this statement.
“And you cannot expect women’s players to accept inconveniences that you do not ask of the men.
UConn played in the last Elite Eight game, with its win over USC in Spokane ending about 11:30 p.m. Eastern on Monday. The Huskies tipped off again about 9:30 p.m. Eastern on Friday. The last Elite Eight men’s game, meanwhile, wrapped up about 8 p.m. last Sunday and the first Final Four game wasn’t until 6 p.m. on Saturday.
Auburn, the last team in, just had to go from Atlanta to San Antonio, too. Not clear cross country like UConn did.”
That is absolutely true. Except San Antonio is in the middle of the country. No one was going to have to fly cross-country.
Last year, Purdue had to fly from the Sunday afternoon game in Detroit to Glendale, Arizona – that is basically cross-country. And it wasn’t the last game of the Elite 8, but they made Connecticut fly from Boston to Glendale, Arizona – that certainly qualifies as cross-country.
We talk about making the game accessible to fans by not making them fly cross-country, but no one understands the math. By making it that no one flies cross-country, it means that Tampa and Glendale (or New York, Boston, Los Angeles or San Francisco) can simply not host a national championship. Otherwise, one of the regionals is going to have a long flight.
As we complain about the fact that UConn had to fly cross the country (and while I haven’t read anything defending them, UCLA had to as well – guess it is alright for a West Coast team to have to fly cross-country), let me remind everyone this. South Carolina and Texas had to make the short trip from Birmingham, Alabama to Tampa Bay, Florida. Not a single one of the men’s regionals were held that close to San Antonio.
I am all for giving the women’s game more equity – they deserve it. Those athletes are incredible and play fantastic basketball. I want to see them get the chance to take their game to a bigger stage. But lets leave the geography arguments out of the conversation. The only way to avoid anyone having a 5-6 hour flight is to force all the games in the midwest – and then everyone (but the midwest) gets a 3 hour flight instead.
If you are going to truly divide into regionals that split the country into 4 parts, and then rotate the final amongst those regions, then someone is going to have to fly cross-country whenever the final comes to the West or East coast. And there are too many major cities along the coasts to never have the championships there.
The women deserve a bigger stage. But the NCAA deciding to play some of the games on the West Coast is not taking the game away from fans.
So, I think the grader needs to re-evaluate his grading method. I came up with a complicated method Sunday night to grade everything based on the Vegas line. I felt that since there were no upsets, you couldn’t really grade based on if the favorites went as far as they were expected, because basically everyone went as far as they were expected.
So, I came up with a method that looks at how the teams did against the Vegas spread (thanks to my handicapping page, I have all the lines). I took all the results, and divided them into 5 equal groups (for A, B, C, D, and F). I then made some adjustments. Winning a game mattered. Winning a game you weren’t supposed to mattered more. Losing a game by less points than anyone else mattered (so for example, UConn lost to Florida by only 2 points in the Round of 32 which is better than Maryland (Sweet 16), Texas Tech (Elite 8) or Auburn (Final 4) – so they might have lost in the Round of 32 but they looked like a Final Four team in that game.
So, with an hour before the game, I started adding everything up. And thanks to the fact that they had no one worse than a C, the Big 10 would have won. That didn’t feel quite right either. Doesn’t feel right to say they were the best when none of their teams made the Final Four. So, I am now scrambling and making up the rules as I go.
SEC – A
With the most teams in the A category and 2 teams in the Final 4, they win the conference battle. And lets face it – Arkansas’s run was sadly the most exciting of the double digit seeds. It wasn’t all good – as they also had the most teams with an F. But with 14 teams, they would bound to have a few duds.
Big 12 – A-
With a team in the Final 4 and Arizona’s strong performance against the spread, I put them next. Quite honestly, this grade is really based on Houston’s amazing run. They were the team I thought was the most vulnerable #1 seed, and yet, they are still playing on Monday night when everyone else has fallen.
Big 10 – B+
I would argue that both the Spartans and Boilers exceeded expectations as they did very well against the Vegas lines. It might seem mean to give a Sweet 16 team like Michigan a C, but their best performance against the spread was actually their 3 point victory over UC-San Diego. No bad teams since every team won their first game, but can’t give an A without a team in the Final Four.
WCC – B
To be fair, the WCC wasn’t supposed to make it far. But they both won their first round game and Gonzaga was competitive against Houston – so it was actually a pretty good tournament for the non-power conference
Big East – C
UConn had one of the best performances against Florida. And Creighton did really well against Auburn. With a bunch of 8/9 seeds, you aren’t supposed to get past the 2nd round. But St. John’s certainly was. And Marquette forgot to show up. Not getting a team into the second weekend gets you a C – even with two teams getting an A.
Mt West – C
With two on the outstanding side of the rankings and two on the horrible side of the rankings, it felt like a C was the appropriate ranking. Colorado State and New Mexico saved the conference from a worse grade.
ACC – D
Here is the problem. Duke got an A because they made the Final Four. But Duke was supposed to win the entire tournament. Their collapse to Houston probably should make them a B. North Carolina got a B solely off destroying San Diego State in the First Four game. And Clemson and Louisville forgot to show up. This was not a good March for the ACC – so they get the worst grade of the power conferences.
One-bid conferences – F
Memphis was the best ranked team as the sole team from the American as a 5 seed, and they lost. Drake and McNeese did win their first games, but then disappeared in their second round games. But the biggest factor with this grade is that excluding Memphis losing, 10 other Cinderellas lost by more than 6 points compared to the spread (which is actually a lot – the Vegas lines tend to be pretty close).
Well, the game as tipped off, as Houston has an early 14-10 lead. As the announcers have said, the game so far is a rock fight – which is scenario 2 for the Lunatic. But there is still plenty of time.
So much to say – so little time. We have less than 2 hours until Florida and Houston tip off in San Antonio to play for the National Championship!!!!
Thanks to the rain, Charlie and I can not re-do Ball Don’t Lie. Which is probably for the best considering that the Ball was a horrible liar this year. When Charlie won for Auburn and I won for Duke, our championship game was doomed. The Ball went 0-3 when Charlie’s massive domination over me in 21 implying that Auburn would win tonight was ridiculously wrong. I probably should thank the rain so I don’t have to watch Charlie destroy me a second time in basketball as I wheeze and almost pass out from the small amount of running that I would have to do.
But I feel like I do have to say something about the game before I rant about the articles that I have been reading about. Or maybe I still have time to grade the conferences. Who knows where the Lunatic will go – since he currently doesn’t.
I already mentioned my sadness about the coaches. Apparently, I am not the only person who can not forgive Kelvin Sampson for his recruiting past since I saw a few stories that made sure to mention his disaster at Indiana. I want to be excited about the game – so I can’t let myself go down that road.
So I will use this as a chance to call out my successful handicapping for the season. Because it brings up some interesting thoughts. Going into the Final Four, I was up $47 (thanks to being up huge on the over/under – as all of you would expect). At that time, I decided I was playing with house money and so was going to bet my max on all the remaining bets.
Sure enough, I got Florida right and the over wrong in the first game. And then got the over right and Duke wrong in the second game – as I watched the Blue Devils collapse. So, while I thought I would be locked tonight, I find myself up $41 going in to the final.
Then, I thought about it. It has been a rough March. Boilers lost in heart-breaking fashion, no Cinderella got past the first weekend, Houston ruined my chance to claim I got the championship game correct – in fact, other than Cinderella, Houston has been killing me softly with its aggressive defense.
The realization came to me that no matter what I do, if I bet the max, Houston would figure out a way to cause me to lose my last chance of winning in March. If I pick them, they will get trounced. If I pick against them, they probably score the last 20 points of the game to beat Florida. It might be only imaginary money at the Lunatic Casino, but it would be one last way for the Cougars to sink their teeth into me and chew me up.
Then, I realized I only have one choice. I have to learn from the Duke collapse. I can complain about the bad call on Flagg. I can complain about the fouling on out-of-bounds play. But Houston didn’t hack the Blue Devils for the entire last 10 minutes. All the most efficient offense in college basketball had to do was score more than 1 field goal over a 10 minute span, and they probably make the lead too much to overcome.
There was even a funny quote I saw (although based on some things I have been seeing, I don’t know that I can trust that it wasn’t simply an AI generated piece of garbage). Someone was telling Kelvin Sampson as he was walking in the tunnel that his Cougars had just made the largest comeback in Final Four history, and he asked how far they were down. The person informed him they were down 14, and Sampson without missing a beat said, “Thank God it wasn’t 17.”
Duke had the chance to put this game away before any heroics could happen, and they simply couldn’t. And so the Lunatic is learning his lesson. I can play with the Lunatic Casino’s money and not lose. Betting my $20 bet for both means that I can’t leave the Lunatic Casino Sportsbook with anything less than a $1 victory, and hopefully another comp at the Lunatic Casino Buffet – fantastic imaginary prime rib.
So here are my thoughts of what will happen tonight. Obviously, there are countless numbers of outcomes – from massive comebacks to close games to complete blowouts. In my mind, there are three most likely outcomes.
So, I have the result that would probably make me happiest (a fun, fast-paced game with lots of scoring), the result that I could tolerate but would prefer it not to be (a slow, physical defensive game where no one can score), or the result that would make me miserable (the referees destroying the game and making me stay up so late that I go delusional).
If my scenarios are right, two of the three scenarios say take Florida and the over. By the way, there are only two realistic choices – you either pick Florida and the over, or you pick Houston and the under – otherwise, you are just giving the Sportsbook the Vig for when you win one bet and lose the other. But I digress….
I will take Florida and the over, knowing that the worst thing that can happen is that I will win by $1. No matter how badly Houston wants to beat me, I will at least walk away with my Handicapping victory! I am going to pick Florida to win based on my first scenario – since that will be a fun game to watch. I am nervous with the way that March has gone, I will be watching the third scenario.
So – there is the Lunatic’s handicapping of the game. No using a random basketball. No coming up with any solid handicapping like Clayton will be unstoppable off the drive on offense, while Cryer will go cold from the field. Simply thinking of the most likely scenarios, thinking of the one he least wants to see, and figure that is the one that will happen.
Lets hope that March proves him wrong and we have a fun, exciting game between the Big 12 champion and SEC tournament champion.
There would be no second half comebacks. There would only be pure domination. Lots was made about this being Paige Bueckers last chance to win a championship, and she certainly had a nice game with 17 points.
But the best player on the court might have been UConn’s freshman Sarah Strong. Strong finished with 24 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 assists. Her 114 points in the tournament was the most points scored by a freshman in NCAA Tournament history.
Add in senior Azzi Fudd’s 24 points and the Big 3 players for the Huskies simply ran away with this National Championship game as the Huskies won 82-59.
This is UConn’s and Geno Auriemma’s 12th championship, and despite all their Final Fours, this is the first time they have broken through since 2016. Congratulations to the Connecticut Huskies – the 2025 NCAA Women’s Basketball National Champions.
South Carolina’s Chloe Kitts drew two quick fouls on Huskie’s Jana El Alfy, forcing the UConn starter to sit with four fouls. But Azzi Fudd made a layup off a nice drive and a jumper, and then made a great pass into Sarah Strong for another basket in the paint, and the Huskies extended their lead to 15. MiLaysia Fulwiley tried to get South Carolina back into the game as she made a nice jumper and then stole the ball and passed it up court to Sania Feagin for a layup.
But the Huskies would stop the run. Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong hit back to back three-pointers and Paige Bueckers hit a couple of free throws and the lead grew to 18 points. By the end of the third quarter based on some free throws, the Huskies have a 20 point lead.
Connecticut is 10 minutes away from a National Championship – they simply need to keep up their current intensity to hold onto their huge lead.
It is my typical operation to blog about each half during these final games. I only have so much more that I can blog about – and so I want to honor these athletes as much as I can before the weekend is over.
Of course, I mentioned how great Auburn and Duke were doing at halftime, only to watch Florida and Houston come back to make the championship game. But I will risk the chance that I am a jinx. The blog must have content!!!
South Carolina started off with an 11-8 lead in perfect fashion for their team as four different players scored. But Azzi Fudd made multiple baskets for the Huskies to lead them to a 19-14 lead at the end of the first quarter.
A big moment in the second quarter was the South Carolina leading scorer Joyce Edwards picked up a second foul on a Paige Bueckers shot and ended up sitting the rest of the half. Bueckers hit both free throws to increase the lead to 7. The lead would stay around there until the end of the half when Ashlynn Shade hit a three-pointer to give the Huskies a 36-26 halftime lead.
Azzi Fudd had 13 points, Sarah Strong had 8, and Paige Bueckers had 8 to lead the Huskies, while Joyce Edwards and Tessa Johnson had 5 points each from the bench to be the leading scorers of the balanced South Carolina team.
As the women’s game approaches, I have to comment on some of the press conferences from UConn’s coach Geno Auriemma and how other lead coaches like Kim Mulkey have chimed in on it.
It all started at the Super Regional where in his press conference, Geno complained about the super regional format. As I steal quotes from multiple articles, here is what he had to say.
“In a normal world, run by normal people, there would only be four teams here,” Auriemma said. “Which means there would be no games today, the games would be tomorrow. Which means we wouldn’t have to get up at 6 a.m. to have an 8 o’clock practice here this morning for an hour.”
“God bless whoever wins Monday night, OK, and they have got to fly cross-country, which is all day Tuesday, then they have two days, Wednesday and Thursday, to play the biggest game of their life,” Auriemma said.
“So whoever came up with this super regional stuff, and I know who they are, ruined the game. They did. They ruined the game. Half the country has no chance to get to a game in person,” Auriemma said. “But you’re making billions off of TV. Well, actually you’re not, that would be the men’s tournament. So, yeah, there’s a lot of issues that they need to fix.”
He also quipped that it took more time to get the players through security at the arena than the amount of time they were allocated to actually practice on the court.
Of course, LSU’s Kim Mulkey chimed in as well about how it was unfair to their fans to make them travel like this. Of course, I am biased because of my opinions of Mulkey and Auriemma from past comments, but this last part annoyed me.
So, let me break this down. Geno mentioned something that should have occurred to me but never did. If you have 8 teams at a site and have games being played every day starting at Noon, when are the players going to get a chance to have a shootaround on the court to get used to the court. Well – now we know thanks to Geno, it is apparently ridiculously early in the morning and I agree with him that sounds horrible.
They still probably have to start pretty early. But if there are only 4 schools there, they either get a later start or more time, either of which would be a better experience for the athletes.
Also, why are they playing on separate days. UConn’s opponents also had to fly cross-country – the UCLA super-regional was also in Spokane. But why did they play the day before. Why wouldn’t you have an off-day and allow the players some more time on the court during the off-day.
I have to respectfully disagree with the Hall of Famer about the travel. Ideally, there would be no travel. The timing is because they want as many of their games on the weekends – it is all about TV contracts, and those TV contracts is helping the game grow. They are getting a lot better coverage with their Final Four being on Friday and Sunday vs. the old method of Sunday and Tuesday.
I agree with the comment that my wife made – why is the game at 3 pm? She likes it because she doesn’t have to stay up super late, but it seems like a double standard – if the men’s game was today, it would be during prime-time. But I think that they are getting more viewers having the championship on Sunday and so while I wouldn’t mind a different time, I think you are stuck with the Friday / Sunday timeslots.
I thoroughly disagree about the travel piece. Geno and Kim can be upset about the regional being in Spokane, but the Huskies and Tigers were not the #1 seeds. The regional is meant to be the closest for the top seed – and those teams in Spokane were UCLA and USC. For them, the super-regional reduced their travel. not increased it.
Lets remember the men’s West regional this year. The Florida Gators were sent to Los Angeles along with Texas Tech, Maryland and Arkansas. I didn’t hear anyone on the men’s side complaining about the travel (maybe I just didn’t get the right press conference details). At least in Spokane for the women’s tournament, the #1 seeds USC and UCLA were West Coast teams.
We also have to remember the first rounds. While I have not double checked it, I am pretty sure that in this amazing 17 years that UConn has continuously made the Final Four, they have probably always been a top 4 protected seed. That means that every year, the Huskies start their journey to the Final Four to play their first two games on their home court. There is not a single men’s team playing a game on their home court – the rules around neutral courts prevent a team hosting their own games.
If we added two regionals in the Midwest (Chicago) and the East (Philadelphia) and setup the bracket the way the men’s tournament is set up, UCLA would have gone to Spokane, South Carolina would go to Birmingham, Texas would have gone to Chicago in the Midwest and then USC would have been forced out East to Philadelphia.
In this scenario, LSU still would have gone to Spokane. They were in UCLA’s bracket, and so they were still heading West. Four regionals instead of super-regionals would not have changed anything for them.
UConn would have lucked out – they would have taken on USC in Philadelphia instead of Spokane. And while that might have been better for the Huskies’ fans, it certainly wouldn’t have been better for the Trojans’ fans – and the Trojans were the #1 seed.
In this situation assuming the bracketing process would have kept the same brackets, USC, UConn, Oklahoma and Kansas State would have gone to Philadelphia instead of Spokane (without doing a huge internet mapping exercise, it seems like it would be worse for USC, better for UConn and neutral for Oklahoma and Kansas State) and Texas, TCU, Notre Dame and Tennessee would have headed to Chicago instead of Birmingham (guessing better for Notre Dame and worse for Texas, TCU and Tennessee). So, we would have made the travel better for 2 teams, and worse for 4 teams – including the two #1 seeds.
I think Geno is probably right that it would be better in a regional format. At a minimum, if you are going to do a super-regional, why not have the two finals in that super-regional play on the same day and then they have the same travel and rest for the Final Four. Or maybe at least pick some more central super-regional sites so that teams are not travelling across the country.
But lets not make the statement that it is about travel for the fans and players. It is just as possible that four regionals would increase the amount of travel for the 16 teams – and it would certainly increase the travel if they went to the neutral courts for the first two rounds like the men’s tournament.
Today, Geno made one last statement, and it gave me a new impression of the Hall of Fame coach.
“Before I do leave here, though, I do have to say this, and not just because it’s women’s basketball. But I’ve been to these Final Fours for 24 years: This is the most women I’ve ever seen at a press conference since I started this 40 years ago. And I’m just really, really proud of you all. Really,”
The game of women’s basketball is growing, and it impacts more than simply the wonderful athletes who are on the court today. And while I have complained about some of the statements that Geno has made in the past and I don’t completely think he has thought through the ramifications of his statements, I do feel that it is coming from a place of sincerity. He is simply doing his best to help promote the equality of women’s sports.
Geno Auriemma is doing great work, and it is not simply because he has led the Connecticut Huskies to another Final Four.
And just so that it doesn’t get lost in the rambling, Dawn Staley of South Carolina is doing incredible work as well. She had some great comments in her press conferences that put all the honor and accolades on her players. She is a fantastic coach who has started to create her own dynasty and Hall of Fame career. South Carolina is going to be competitive for years to come because Dawn Staley is there. She simply didn’t say anything controversial to make the Lunatic rant. In a way, that should be recognized and rewarded more.
The Crazed Lunatic is a crazy college basketball fan, especially for his Purdue Boilermakers!!!! Boiler Up!!!!
Every March, his passion comes out to rant and rave about one of the best sporting events in the world, the NCAA Basketball Tournament. While many of you will Stomp the Lunatic with your picks in our fun bracket picking game, this will not diminish the Lunatic’s crazed attempt at blogging about the tournament that he loves. Whether it will be trying to predict who will be in the tournament during Championship Week or his insane attempt to handicap all 67 games against the Vegas spreads, you can count on the Lunatic’s sleep-deprived rantings throughout the month of March.
If you notice any problems with the website or have any questions about the Stomp the Lunatic contest, please reach out by email at thomas@tehodgson.com
