Stomp The Lunatic

So, the Lunatic is doing surprisingly well on his handicapping page, especially with picking the over/under bets. This is even more surprising considering that many of his picks have been made between midnight and 3 am.

But that success isn’t the main reason that he is super excited. The Lunatic has managed to finish picking all 8 of Saturday’s games. The thought that I can consider going to bed after the last game ends instead of turning on Law & Order: SVU so I have something on in the background to try to keep me awake while I pick the games is super appealing.

Last night, as I made my last 4 picks, I had to go back into the comment section and remove the character that was showing up for 10-15 straight characters as I momentarily nodded off with my finger on the keyboard. So the thought of going to sleep before 2:30 am is making the Lunatic super happy.

If I keep doing this well, the Lunatic Casino is going to start comping me to try to keep me in the sportsbook. They have one of the best imaginary buffets around – delicious roast beef. I can see a casino representative coming towards me now – please Mr. Lunatic – stay up ridiculously late and possibly make some bad bets while you are here. Why don’t you get some food to give yourself some strength?

Marquette had taken a one point lead with 6 1/2 minutes to play (58-57). Then Nelly Joseph and Donovan Dent took over. First Dent got the ball inside to Joseph for a layup to regain the lead. Then, Donovan hit two baskets to push the lead to 5. Then, Marquette tried to stop Dent and he found Joseph open for another layup. Then, Dent got another assist when he passed the ball to Tru Washington for a deep two-point shot (his foot was just on the line) from the corner.

The Lobos would go on a 10-0 run over 3 minutes to take control of the game. Marquette would just not recover from the run. If they tried to stop Dent from driving, he would find the open pass. If they took away the pass, he would simply score himself.

I have to apologize to the Mountain West champions. After watching San Diego State and Utah State get destroyed, I simply assumed that this would be another tough tournament for the Mountain West – they have a history of quick exits.

They proved me wrong. First, the conference tournament champion Colorado State beat Memphis in a game that they controlled. Then, the regular season champion New Mexico totally outplayed and outhustled Marquette, a team coached by Shaka Smart who is known for teams that hustle.

If I had said that one conference would advance 2 teams to the weekend and one would only get 1 between the Mountain West and ACC, who would have guessed after the UNC / San Diego State game that the answer would be the Mountain West.

Beware the Mountain West champions – they have both moved on to the weekend.

Well, in the time it took me to write my post, wrap up things at work and head home, St. Mary’s went on a 16-4 run to tie the game at 43 with 8 minutes to play.

In what turned into a defensive battle, Augustas Marciullonis broke a tie at 50 with a three-pointer to give the Gaels a lead, and a couple minutes later, Luke Barrett hit a three to extend the lead to six. Vandy’s Devin McGlockton responded with a three, but Marciullonis drew a foul and hit his free throws to keep the lead at 5.

Still, the Commodores would not go away. Tyler Nickel hit a three with a minute left to make it a 2 point game. St. Mary’s took time off the clock, and Barrett missed a shot, but Mitchell Saxen got the rebound and was fouled. Saxen hit one of his two free throws to set the stage.

Vanderbilt came down the court, but Jason Edwards missed a three-pointer to tie the game. The rebound headed to the corner, where McGlockton got the ball, but his desperate three-pointer also missed the target, and the WCC champions survived and advanced.

Meanwhile, North Carolina summed up their season. Down 22 points to Ole Miss, they played with a crazy passion including an 11-0 run to cut the lead all the way down to 2 with about a minute left as RJ Davis drove to the basket and made a crazy layup while being fouled. After Davis hit the free throw, Ole Miss came down and got Sean Pedulla open off a screen for a game-ending three-pointer. Ole Miss would hang on for a 71-64 victory, as the Tar Heels have to wonder what their season would have been like if they had constantly played like they did in the second half against Duke in the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament today.

The announcer mentioned as Ven-Allen Lubin missed a layup with about 22 seconds about Carolina uncharacteristically missing so many shots in the lane, and the other announcer said – but that layup is not what cost them the game. You simply can’t fall behind 22 points and expect to win. That stretch in the first half where they went cold is what ended their season.

Looking forward to some of the late games tonight. UConn vs. Oklahoma and Illinois vs. Xavier should be interesting games! But that being said, my apologies to Vanderbilt (and almost Ole Miss). Like I told Charlie, the game isn’t over. I should have waited to see what happened before posting – I just was in a hurry to give credit to Colorado State and Baylor.

Haven’t seen much this afternoon while I have been at work, but it looks like we have had a few more upsets as 9 seed Baylor knocked off Mississippi State and 12 seed Colorado State knocked off Memphis.

Some of my theories about the weaker part of the SEC and the Mountain West. Mississippi State lost to Baylor – so things started as expected. But then Colorado State made sure the Mountain West would have a team in the 2nd round against a Memphis team whose star player PJ Haggerty played out of control as Memphis tried to come back.

I think Vanderbilt is up double digits as well – not to mention Ole Miss is killing North Carolina (the Rebels aren’t in the category of weaker SEC teams at 10-8, but they certainly are making sure UNC doesn’t repeat what they did against San Diego State). Of course, there is still a full half to be played. Will head home soon so I can see the evening set of games!!!

Well, UC San Diego had Michigan on the ropes. In a one point game with 20 seconds, Michigan’s Roddy Gayle Jr drove to the basket and missed a shot in the lane, but Vladislav Goldin rebounded the ball and got fouled as he went back up for a put-back. Goldin would hit both free throws to set the stage. In a little bit of a head-scratcher, UC San Diego slowly took the ball up to the court, and as I am screaming, “You are taking too much time!!!”, Tyler McGhie ends up having to take a fade-away three-pointer over 7-footer Danny Wolf, and the shot hits the rim and bounces into the arms of Rubin Jones to end the game.

UNC-Wilmington also made their game close for a while, but Texas Tech eventually pulled away at the end of the game to win by 10.

Congratulations to Debbe Evans and Doug Brunner, who impressively got 15 of 16 games right today to take the early lead in the Standard Pool. I will apologize in advance to those tied in 3rd place. On one side, I would love to put you all in the blog, but with it being after 1 am, and there is 18 people tied for 3rd, I will just say that the Lunatic is also impressed with all 18 of you to get 14 games correct. The Lunatic was pretty happy his picks got 13 and 12 games right, so to get 14 or 15 is really incredible.

As for the Upset Pool, Doug Brunner also leads that with 83 points (having only missed the Michigan game). In second place is Stacie Gilmore at 81 points. Debbe Evans and Cooper Ams are tied at 76 for 3rd place. Rounding out the top 5 are Gregg Farber and John Howarth at 75 points.

But lets face it, it is still early (or if we get literal, very late). For the most part, the major favorites won their games, and so most brackets survived the first day without too much damage. Good luck with your picks tomorrow!!!

The Drake Bulldogs jumped out to a 7 point half-time lead, and continued to pull ahead of 6 seed Missouri, finding themselves up 13 points with about 10 minutes to play.

At this point, Charlie comes home from hanging out with friends and told me that he hates Kansas and they stink for messing up his bracket (maybe a little bit more colorfully than that – but it is a family blog). So, he asks me what happened and as I was explaining watching Dickinson and the Jayhawks turn the ball over again and again, he says, by the way, thanks for telling me to take Drake – my friend Nathan also thanks you for your opinion.

Basically, I had told him that Drake is the type of team to take for an upset. Every time I watch Missouri, one of two things happen. Missouri is unstoppable offensively and scores 100 points. Missouri goes crazy cold and watch helplessly as the other team beats them. I am sure that the games were not always like that – but almost every game I watched seem that way. Anyways, I told Charlie that Drake is a really good defensive team, and that could rattle Missouri. So he and his friend apparently took the Bulldogs in an upset.

Well, as we are talking about other things going on, Missouri mounted a comeback. I am not really sure what happened, all I knew was over the next 6 minutes, the Tigers cut the lead to 1 point – and I told Charlie – this is all his fault, games are never over in March.

Drake would right the ship and score on their next two possessions to stretch the lead back to 5 with about 3 minutes left. Charlie and I continue to talk and it seems like the Bulldogs and Tigers were trading free throws to keep the lead between 4-6 points.

This continued to about 1 minute left in the game when Missouri tried to pass the ball to the corner for a three and Kael Combs was Drake steals the ball. As Missouri pressed to try to get the ball back, Drake finally got free and went on a fast break with a pretty pass into the frontcourt to Bennett Stirtz who lobbed the ball up to the basket for a pretty dunk by Tavion Banks.

And with that, the game was over – Missouri would never get closer than that 8 point lead and the Drake Bulldogs become another potential Cinderella team who has made it to the second round.

Arkansas looked like they had the game against Kansas under control building out an 8 point lead.

But with Hunter Dickinson on the bench, the Jayhawks made a run hitting some three pointer. The Jayhawks came back to take the lead 65-64 with about 5 minutes to play. Then, the Jayhawks leading scorer came back into the game. KJ Adams Jr extended their lead to 3, and then the wheels came off the bus.

Their next 9 possessions would be 6 turnovers, typically involving either a really sloppy pass by their senior leader Dickinson or a sloppy pass trying to get the ball to Dickinson, 2 missed shots (one being a horrible three-point shot by Dickinson), and 2 made free throws by A.J. Storr.

Meanwhile, Boogie Fland made a field goal, Jonas Aidoo hit two free throws to take the lead, and then Johnny Davis hit a huge three-point shot with about 2 minutes to play to give the Razorbacks a 4 point lead.

After DJ Wagner extended the lead to 6 from the free throw line with 20 seconds, Rylan Griffen hit a three pointer to keep Kansas in the game. But Johnny Davis would hit two free throws to ice the game. The Razorbacks would finish on a 15-5 run and set up a potential matchup between John Calipari and Rick Pitino’s St. John’s team. Of course, Omaha started off strong, so you never know….

I just wanted to give all of you a huge thank you. I am still kind of trying to do all my typical Thursday administrative tasks for the pool such as getting the e-mail list set up while watching some of the games. Not to mention having to still pick all of Friday’s games against the spread – still not sure what I was thinking when I introduced that segment…..

But barring any weird database timing issues (such as someone submitting their bracket at the exact time I was locking down the contest), we have 334 entries (322 in the money pool) from 194 people.

The fact that so many of you come join my crazy contest and hopefully, enjoy the blog in the process, makes me tremendously happy.

Good luck to all of you in Stomping the Lunatic!!!

One of the biggest stories in my mind of this year’s tournament is the fact that 14 of the 16 SEC teams made the NCAA Tournament. The SEC has certainly had a historic season this year, and there were so many great games from the conference.

That being said, I have to go on record that I wish the committee had not done that. I understand why they did based on all the statistics, but this is one of those cases where I feel like we are missing a key statistic.

Auburn, Florida, Alabama and Tennessee have kind of been in a league of their own. But I feel that their dominance has carried the rest of the SEC into the tournament by boosting their league’s statistics.

I hate the idea of 8-10 (or even worse 6-12) teams making the tournament. I get that those teams might have gone undefeated in the non-conference but they are struggling when it matters the most.

We saw Texas get out to a double digit lead against Xavier on Wednesday night just to throw the lead away. I was excited to see what Georgia might do – but they are down 18 in the second half to Gonzaga.

We still have Arkansas, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and of course 6-12 Oklahoma to go. They certainly have the talent to win some games, but it makes me wonder what is the clear criteria for deserving. Mississippi State will even be considered the favorite against Baylor. But I hope we can relook at things if they all lose (I suspect at least one of them will come through and win).

I also understand that top teams like Louisville and Clemson can lose just as easily in the tournament. But wouldn’t we want to see a mid-major team like McNeese play in these games.

It simply sends the wrong message. There are certainly worthy mid-majors. You could even consider 10-10 Indiana or West Virginia. But right now we are saying that 9 seed Oklahoma going 6-12 in the SEC is better than 11 seed Xavier going 13-7 in the Big East (the conference with the two time defending national champion) and UC-Irvine who went 17-3 in the Big West is just wasting everyone’s time to talk about. Let that sink in for a second – totally get the competition level is different, but we think a team went 29-6 isn’t worth talking about and could not figure out how to win 6 games in the SEC with 9 of those games at home.

I am certainly not trying to say that UCI or Indiana or WV would do better – we just don’t know. But as Georgia loses by 25 to Gonzaga, it is pretty easy to question whether we would be better off giving someone else a chance. At the moment, it couldn’t be much worse. And if it couldn’t be much worse, shouldn’t we give the opportunity to the 29-6 team we know nothing about. They might not be better, but I do feel they are more deserving.

I think I am dreaming – after being up until 3 am, I am pretty sure I am asleep – happily enjoying Trey Kaufman-Renn and Braden Smith combine for 41 points of the Boilermakers 75 points, as Purdue holds off a pesky #13 seed High Point 75-63.

I know – my dreams get awfully specific this time of year. Maybe I am awake after all. Here is hoping that I am awake and that my Boilermakers have advanced to the weekend!

BOILER UP!!!!