That was a dominating performance! Gabriela Jacquez scored 21 points and got 10 rebounds. Gianna Kneepkens scored 15 points, and Lauren Betts scored 14 points and 11 rebounds.
The Bruins outrebounded South Carolina 49-36 and held the Gamecocks to 29 percent from the field including only 13 percent from three point range.
When all the dust settled, UCLA finished with a 79-51 victory to claim their first NCAA women’s championship!!! Congratulations to the Bruins!
Well, there was no comeback – which leads to a sad Lunatic. There is nothing to blog about here – other than the Michigan Wolverines came to Indianapolis, and totally destroyed the Arizona Wildcats.
Aday Mara scored 26 points, Trey McKinney added 16 points from the bench, Elliot Cadeau had 10 assists, and the Wolverines continued to shut down the Arizona defense.
Congratulations to the Big 10 champions, Michigan Wolverines, as they won 91-73 over Arizona to advance to Monday night’s final against UConn.
It has been such a weird game. If you had told me that Yaxel Lindeborg would get 2 quick fouls, come back in for a few minutes, twist his ankle and knee and get taken to the locker room, I would have expected that Arizona would be winning. I certainly would not have expected that Michigan would be winning 48-32 at half.
The Wolverines jumped out to a 10-1 lead as Nimari Barnett hit a three-pointer and Morez Johnson Jr made a layup and got fouled for his own three-point play.
They would extend that lead to 16 points with 10 minutes to play when Aday Mara got a rebound off a missed shot by Lindeborg and made a shot in the lane.
After Yaxel got hurt, Arizona made their own run. Ivan Kharchenkov hit a three-pointer and Motejus Krivas started dominating the lane with a couple baskets and free-throws to cut the lead to 28-23 with a little under 7 minutes left.
But then Arizona went ice cold. Roddy Gayle got a dunk of a nice pass from Nimari Burnett, Burnett hit a layup, Trey McKinney hit a three-pointer, Roddy Gayle hit a three-pointer as the Wolverines went on a 10-2 run. And then Aday Mara scored 5 points inside as Michigan kept lobbing the ball into the big man and letting him work.
Aday Mara has 15 points and Morez Johnson Jr added 8 points as Michigan is tied with Arizona’s dominant front line with 23 rebounds, but more importantly, their defense has forced 9 turnovers by the Wildcats.
Arizona looks rattled, and Michigan looks like they can score at will. And they are doing it all with their star player on the bench.
But as we all know, no lead is safe in March – there is 20 more minutes to play that stand in the way of the Wolverines and a date with UConn on Monday night.
With no offense to UConn and Illinois, one of the things the Lunatic always marvels at is how the conference champions rise to the top. So, in the nightcap, we have the Big 10 champion against the Big 12 champion, with a trip to the championship game being on the line.
Arizona (36-2, 1 seed in the West)
STARTING LINE-UP (based on last game)
KEY BENCH
HOW THEY GOT HERE
CURRENT KENPOM STATS
COACH – Tommy Lloyd
Freshman Koa Peat was the most outstanding player in the West region. He was able to drive to the lane at will and dominate the boards. But he wasn’t even Arizona’s leading scorer this season – that was Braylon Burries, their best three-point shooter.
Just because Burries is good from outside though doesn’t mean that is where he scores all his points. Arizona lives in the paint, with all five players being capable of driving the lane and scoring on their drives. And then they crash the boards leading to lots of tip-ins.
One factor that might matter is the fact that Arizona does not shoot a lot of three-pointers. Over the season, Michigan shot 300 more three-pointers than the Wildcats. The only time Arizona shoots from outside is when they are completely wide open – and they are normally deadly when that happens. The reason I mention this is I just watched Illinois struggle from three, something that occasionally happens when teams play in these football stadiums with unusual site-lines for the shots.
Arizona wins their games by scoring in the paint and then smothering you on defense. And with their physical driving, they get you in foul trouble.
Michigan (35-3, 1st in the Midwest)
STARTING LINE-UP (based on last game)
IMPORTANT BENCH
HOW THEY GOT HERE
CURRENT KENPOM STATS
COACH – Dusty May
Michigan looked so dominating through the year. The Big 10 was the best conference in basketball this year, and they went 19-1 in the conference normally winning by double digits.
They are led by Yaxel Lendeborg, who has the ability to score from anywhere. It is crazy tough to guard a 6’9″ guy who can also hit three-pointers.
Michigan statistically has the best defense in college basketball. This is because their big men don’t tend to give a lot of offensive rebounds – they control the boards. With a 7’3″ rim protector and four athletic players roaming the perimeter, they can guard both drives and three-point shooters.
At the end of the day, we are looking at the two best defenses in college basketball, and the 4th vs 5th best offenses in college basketball. Both the Wildcats and Wolverines are extremely efficient in what they do. Whoever wins the paint, something both teams are used to winning, will likely decide who moves on to play UConn.
Should be a fantastic game between the Big 10 and Big 12 champions, and it is almost ready to tip off.
With a little under 10 minutes in the second half, Jaylin Stewart hit a three-pointer to extend the UConn Huskies lead to 14 points. And then Illinois started to chip away.
Tomislav Ivisic kept getting the ball in the post, and either scoring on a layup or drawing a foul and hitting his free throws, and suddenly with 7 minutes left, the Fighting Illini had cut the lead to 6.
With 5 minutes, Andrej Stojakovic drove to the basket and hit a layup and the lead was down to 4 points. But that set off an important stretch for the Huskies. They finally got the ball down to Tarris Reed Jr, who scored in the lane. And then after Keaton Wagler missed a crazy deep three-pointer, Alex Karaban got the rebound and started the fast break getting the ball to Solo Ball for a huge dunk – and the lead was back to 8 points. Illinois would continue to try to chip away, and they got the lead back down to 4 with about 90 seconds left when Wagler drove the lane and made the shot.
UConn took the shot clock down, and found Alex Karaban outside for a three-pointer, but he missed the three-pointer. However, Silas Demary Jr outleaped everyone for the ball and took the ball back out to drain more time. And at the end of that, with about 50 seconds left, they got the ball to Braylon Mullins, and the freshman drilled the three-pointer to give the Huskies a 7 point lead.
Wagler would quickly counter with a step-back three-pointer to get the lead back to 4 points, but that would be as close as Illinois would get. Silas Demary Jr hit both free-throws, Jayden Ross would hit a free-throw, Reed would make both free-throws, and meanwhile, Wagler and Ben Humrichous would miss their desperation three-pointers. And the Huskies would finish with a 71-62 victory to send themselves to the NCAA Championship Game! Congratulations to the UConn Huskies!
To start the second half, the TV broadcast announced this statistic.
Illinois is 0-10 in NCAA Tournament games when they are down 8+ at half.
Connecticut is 35-1 in NCAA Tournament games when they are up 8+ at half.
The statistics of course make sense. Teams when they are leading by 8 points at half tend to hold onto their lead. But will that be that moment like when the announcer goes and says that free throw shooter is one of the best in the country and has made their last 27 free throws right before he puts up a brick.
Only time will tell. But I had to mention it since it caught my attention.
It has definitely been a game of runs. The Huskies came out hot, as they took an 18-9 lead when Jayden Ross hit a three-pointer from the corner, and then Tarris Reed Jr got the ball down low by a nice pass from Alex Karaban and Reed finished it with a thunderous dunk. This forced Illinois to call time-out.
Illinois came out strong after the time-out, and went on their own 13-3 run, being finished by Tomislav Ivisic hitting a deep three-pointer to give the Fighting Illini the lead.
In the final 4 minutes, it was all Huskies. Tarris Reed Jr made a hook shot in the lane, Solo Ball hit a three-pointer from the top of the key, Alex Karaban hit a three-pointer from the corner, and Braylon Mullins hit a three-pointer by banking it off the back-board as the shot clock ran down. And the Huskies will take a 37-29 lead into halftime.
At the end of the day, the difference is the three-point shooting. Illinois’ offense is kick-started by their ability to shoot from the outside, and they only made 3 of 14 in the first half. Meanwhile, UConn is 7-18 from three, as Braylon Mullins is 3-5 from deep and Jayden Ross added two three-pointers from the bench.
Tarris Reed Jr looks unstoppable as he has 11 points. And Braylon Mullins has returned home to Indianapolis to get 12 points off his 3 three-pointers.
Keaton Wagler has 10 points, and has had some really pretty drives to the basket, but he has been cold from outside. It certainly was a surprise that the only outside threat for Illinois so far as been their 7’1″ center Tomislav Ivisic.
So, the Huskies have an 8 point lead and are 20 minutes away from the championship game. Will the Huskies defense continue to styme Illinois from the outside, or will the Fighting Illini make a run? As UConn helped continue to remind us last Sunday, no lead is safe in March.
While I am certainly not going to provide any predictions better than what my golf ball did, I think it is still nice to see some information about the teams – in case you haven’t watched them before.
Illinois (28-8, 3 seed in the South)
STARTING LINE-UP (based on last game)
KEY BENCH
HOW THEY GOT HERE
CURRENT KENPOM STATS
COACH – Brad Underwood
Probably the biggest story around Illinois is the meteoric rise of Keaton Wagler. Wagler was a 4 star recruit whose received offers to multiple mid-majors but only had offers from Illinois and DePaul from the power conference schools. Wagler chose Illinois, and the rest is history. The freshman has been averaging almost 20 points per game, and has the ability to take over a game either by driving to the hoop or shooting lights out from three-point range.
But Illinois is not simply Wagler. They are one of the tallest teams in college basketball as the only player of their normal 8 who play under 6’6″ is senior Kylan Boswell. And to make it harder to defend them, their big men can shoot from three-point range. Statistically, they currently have the #1 offense in college basketball.
But I would argue the reason that Illinois has made it to the Final Four is that their defense has been exceptional in the tournament. The only team that scored more than 60 points against the Fighting Illini was Penn in the first round – who scored 70 and still lost by 35.
Their key to success will likely be whether or not Wagler has a great game. When he is on fire, Illinois is unstoppable – so it will critical for the Huskies to make it hard for him to get shots.
Connecticut (33-5, 2nd in the East)
STARTING LINE-UP (based on last game)
IMPORTANT BENCH
HOW THEY GOT HERE
CURRENT KENPOM STATS
COACH – Dan Hurley
REGULAR SEASON MATCHUP
So, if experience matters, then you have to figure the Huskies have the advantage as multiple players from the 2024 champions stayed in school and are now juniors and seniors for this version of the Huskies, including Alex Karaban who was a starter for that championship team.
They also feel like a team of destiny after watching their amazing victory over Duke in the East Regional Final. They somehow find ways to win games.
The Huskies are led by Karaban, who has the ability to score in the paint or from three-point range, and Tarris Reed Jr, a transfer from Michigan who is a beast in the paint. But maybe the most important player for them will be Silas Demary Jr – their point guard.
And that is because Demary not only is an excellent passer, but is an incredible defender – which the Huskies will need to try to keep Wagler at bay. At the end of the day, this game likely comes down to if UConn’s lock-down defense can stop Illinois’ high-octane offense.
Well – the game is ready to begin – the Final Four is here!!!!!! Good luck to both the Huskies and the Fighting Illini.
I had planned to do a version of “Ball Don’t Lie” this afternoon after my golf round. I figured since I can’t handicap it, lets leave it to the luck of the basketball. What I planned to do was have 4 quarters where I shoot 10 free throws and 5 three-pointers for each team. Except when I got home from my golf round (relatively exhausted already), I realized that I have no idea where the basketball is. I think it might have made the trip to Harrisonburg with Charlie.
Fortunately, I had thought there was a potential that I would not have time after the round to do the Ball Don’t Lie feature. So, as I drove to the Club at Viniterra, I came up with the following plan. My course handicap at the moment is 22 – but I have been really struggling this year, not breaking 100 in my last 4 rounds. If I gave myself 4 more shots – that would be what I needed to do to finally break 100. So, here is how I decided to this.
Each nine would represent a match – I would predict the over/under based on whether or not I broke 50. I would predict the winner based on whether or not match play would beat my handicap. So, the only question is who would benefit if I beat my handicap. I decided since I always want to break 100, and because the two favorites at the moment are the Big 10 teams, it made sense for the Boilermaker to take the favorites.
I have been struggling with making clean contact with my irons – and then of course, my chipping and putting. So, you can imagine my chagrin of how today went. The first hole is a par 5 – I hit a nice shot to the fairway, a nice shot to advance the ball, and hit a clean iron from 150 yards out, and it hooked a little left to land in the bunker. Then, my bunker shot flew the green, my chip barely got back onto the green, and three putted for my triple bogey. Illinois was already down 1.
I continued to make nice contact with my irons the whole day. And yet, instead of chunking the ball up the fairway and then watching my chipping game go awry, I would hit it cleanly and watch as it would slightly hook. Into a bunker on 2nd, into a bunker on 3rd, into a bunker on 4th, into a bunker on 6th. On the seventh, my tee-shot leaked into the fairway bunker, I surprisingly hit the 145 yard shot clean out of the bunker, and watched as it hit the edge of the green, took a bounce to the left and rolled into the greenside bunker.
The bunker to bunker on seven led to my 5th double bogey of the round, and despite a par on 8 and a bogey on 9 (on a hole I got an extra stroke), I was already too far behind. The two wins made it a respectable down 1, but still a loss. And the overall 52 means take the over. So, in the Illinois game, the golf ball says the following:
So, I move to the back nine, trying to figure out why I was striking the ball well and still ended up in 7 bunkers (of which many required multiple shots to get out of).
I started strong, with a drive up the middle of the fairway and another well hit iron. Despite three-putting the green, I got an extra stroke – so the bogey put me up 1.
That lead would be short-lived as on 11, I found – you guessed it – a bunker. Double bogey and I was all-square. Scrambled well on the par 3 to stay even, but the hardest hole on the back, my drive found the fairway bunker and never recovered. The next hole I hit a beautiful drive up the middle to chunk my gap wedge from 100 yards out. The first time I made that mistake with my iron, and then the second time I made that mistake, and the third – another triple bogey. Suddenly down 2.
But the Lunatic rallied. On the par 5 – 15th, he scrambled well for bogey when getting a shot to cut the lead to one. On the par 3 16th, he hit a pretty nine iron to 8 feet from the hole. His birdie putt just missed, but par still evened up the match. On 17, the Lunatic found another fairway bunker, and surprisingly hit a beautiful shot out of that bunker leading to another par. Up 1 heading to the final par 5, hit a good drive, a good 3 wood up the fairway, and struck my 6 iron well but it hooked. I ended up pin-high, but behind a bunker. Which then ended up with my next shot in the bunker, which then barely got out of the bunker – and two putts later, the double bogey meant I finished tied.
Well – I didn’t plan in my drive to the course for that scenario – although I guess I should have. I guess, if the golf ball is predicting a tie, it means that you have to take the underdog.
So, if the golf ball is correct, we will see the Big 10 flame out tonight just like the Lunatic did – leading to a final of UConn vs. Arizona. And the Lunatic will have to decide whether he will be happy that he was hitting his irons better, or if he will be sad because he still couldn’t break 100 this year after finding 11 bunkers on the course.
The Lunatic certainly doesn’t know if a golf ball knows anything about college basketball. Considering how much time it spent in sand, I would feel more comfortable if it was predicting something like swimming or beach volleyball. But the Lunatic figures that the golf ball is still probably a better handicapper than anything he would come up through analysis.
Fortunately, we don’t need to wait much longer – Illinois and UConn will tip-off in just about an hour in Indianapolis. Good luck to all four teams tonight!!!!!
This is normally around the time where I would bring my family members in as experts to pick the games. However, Charlie is off to James Madison for college, and Katie and Elizabeth typically did it just to humor my need for blog content. Add into it that I am over $700 imaginary dollars down in my handicapping, and I just figured that all the teams (especially the ones that I might pick) will appreciate it if I simply leave their names out of the blog.
I was going to go and find my old College 2K8 Playstation game, and play the games out on my very old PS3. But then I started watching the women’s games and they were more interesting than trying to figure out how to get a gaming system I haven’t turned on in years to work.
So with it being after midnight, I am going to call it quits for the night. I might still do my own version of the “Ball Don’t Lie” to forecast the game. Or maybe I should simply flip a coin. But all these choices make me nervous if the mere mention of the Lunatic picking a team will be a jinx, even if it is based on how many free throws I can hit (since with Charlie at college, I am also missing my opponent in the Ball Don’t Lie HORSE matchups).
For now, I am going to go to sleep. There are no expert picks – which is probably for the best. Championships are won on the court and not on paper. But with as bad as I have picked things this year, I certainly don’t need to hurt some team’s chances by saying I think they can cover the spread.
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
