Stomp The Lunatic

I was thinking about the tournament as I try to do my annual post about how the selection committee did. And I was a little sad about the lack of Cinderella stories left (although while they are not a small school, I don’t know how anyone couldn’t get excited about the run NC State has made – 7 wins in 11 days knowing that losing any of those games ends their season – just an incredible magical run).

But the more I thought about it, I realized how incredibly lucky we are, and how great this Sweet 16 is – lets review this power-house list.

– Big East regular season and tournament champions Connecticut – the #1 team in the final polls

– Big 12 regular season champions Houston – the #2 team in the final polls

– Big 12 tournament champions Iowa State – the #4 team in the final polls

– Big 10 regular season champions Purdue – the #3 team in the final polls

– Big 10 tournament champions Illinois – the #10 team in the final polls

– ACC regular season champions North Carolina – the #5 team in the final polls

– ACC tournament champions NC State – who might be the most exciting story of the tournament so far

– SEC regular season champions Tennessee – the #6 team in the polls

– Pac 12 regular season champions Arizona – the #9 team in the polls

– #8 team in the polls Marquette – who finished tied for second in the Big East and has their star guard back from injuries earlier in the season

– #11 team in the polls Creighton – who finished tied for second in the Big East with Marquette

– #13 team in the polls Duke – who finished second in the ACC

– #18 team in the polls Gonzaga – who just made it to their 9th straight Sweet 16

– #19 team in the polls Alabama – who finished tied for 2nd in the ACC

– #24 team in the polls San Diego State – the Mountain West team who made it all the way to the championship game last season before losing to UConn

– Clemson – who managed to knock off #14 Baylor to make the ACC 8-1 in this tournament.

So, we have all 6 power conference regular season champions, 3 of the 5 power conference tournament champions (excluding UConn since they are in the first category), 2 of the most dominant mid-major teams in recent history. 14 of the 16 teams entered the tournament ranked (including 11 of the top 13 ranked teams). Outside of Clemson and San Diego State, any team that didn’t finish as a tournament or regular season champion finished no worse than tied for 2nd in the regular season.

If you sum it up, you basically have taken the top two teams from almost every power conference, and added the two most successful recent mid-major teams, and say fight it out for the national championship. Except instead of someone just picking those 16 teams, these teams after proving they were the best all through the regular season won 2 more games to earn their spots to play over the next 4 days.

We might be missing Cinderella – but in a way, this might be even better. It should be an amazing Sweet 16 and Elite 8 to watch the best teams in college basketball try to continue their journey to win a national championship.

What could be better than this – the fact that the women’s tournament will also be going on where 13 of the top 16 seeds also made it to the Sweet 16. So much amazing basketball will be going on – my only regret is that I can’t watch every game live since some of them will be played at the same time.

So excited for the games to begin!!! Enjoy what should be a fantastic weekend of college basketball!!!

In case you forgot, there was actually basketball played today. Although for fans from Virginia, it ended badly, as the VCU Rams surprising run in the NIT came to an end in Utah tonight.

But congratulations go out to Utah and Seton Hall, who dominated tonight to make it to the semi-finals, as well as Georgia and Indiana State, who won nail-biter games yesterday to advance.

A couple additional NIT thoughts.

• This year, the NIT has moved the semi-finals and finals to Indianapolis and Hinkle Fieldhouse. How awesome would it be if Indiana State figured out how to revive some movie-like magic and create their own version of Hoosiers next week.
• Oklahoma, Seton Hall, Indiana State, and Pitt were the first four teams left out by the Selection Committee. And to be fair, each of them probably had arguments that they should have been in. But a ton of credit goes to Seton Hall and Indiana State, because after that heart-breaking decision for them, they welcomed the NIT invitation, and have now won 3 games to make it to the final post-season week of 2024 to play for the NIT title. And Oklahoma and Pitt were so upset that they declined the invitation and had to sit at home and watch other teams play basketball. It is amazingly clear who made the better choice.
• Part of the large amount of teams declining bids was due to the NCAA’s horrible decision of opening up the transfer portal – some teams reportedly mentioned that with players who had told them their intention to enter the transfer portal, they would end up going to play the NIT with only 6-8 scholarship players. If they couldn’t field a competitive teams because of the number of players leaving, they chose not to take the invitation. This is a ridiculous decision by the NCAA. The season is not over!!!! There are still games to be played!!!! The fact that teams are not playing in the post-season because their players have already left is a ridiculous fact that has to be fixed.
• By the way, to that last statement, I read an article that one of the Pepperdine players who entered the transfer portal has already signed with Gonzaga. This is simply another reason this should be stopped. I give credit to the Gonzaga coaching staff for thinking about their long-term future along with their upcoming game, but they shouldn’t have to make this decision. Allow the post-season tournaments to finish before you open the transfer window, and these types of problems go away.
• The same should apply to coaches. Dusty May is leaving Florida Atlantic to coach at Michigan and Danny Sprinkle is leaving Utah State to coach at Washington. Within days of being eliminated from the tournament, these two coaches are leaving for larger schools. It is a horrible look for the sport – making it look like those schools might have lost because their coach was more focused on getting their next job instead of their next game. And it also is horrible – because any of the coaches / assistant coaches on the 16 teams still playing are not able to get these new opportunities because their teams are still playing.

I have struggled with this. I had my original picks that I gave on the Podcast (definitely check it out) – but then realized they were very similar to my current picks. I then had wild crazy picks – going under the strategy that with the chalk winning the first 2 rounds, the upsets would eventually have to come. And then after looking of the carnage of upsets, I changed all of it.

I had three reasons for this:

1. Before the tournament as I was doing my bracketology, all I could think to myself is that it is amazing that Connecticut, Houston and Purdue have done so well in the season that they will have 1 seeds no matter what they do in their conference tournaments. Then, when I made my current picks, I tried to find places to not have all 4 top seeds make it to the Final Four, which felt awkward (and led to a horrible pick of Auburn over UConn).
2. Every year, I write an article about how it is impressive that the conference champions manage to survive to the finals (although to be fair, UConn ruined that theory last year – I am already doubting this new strategy).
3. I am a crazy person that overthinks everything. Having this much time to over-analyze my picks causes me to make likely poor choices.

Anyways, here is the strategy that I took. I would pick regular season champions over conference tournament champions. I would pick either over a team who is simply an at-large team. If two teams are at the same level, I will need to make choices.

Oh – one last rule. Once my final four happens, I can not pick a team that my main picks have winning the tournament (Purdue and Connecticut). The whole point is to give me a second chance if something goes wrong (which hopefully will not happen).

So – here is each game based on my new logic.

East – UConn (Big East champ) beats San Diego State. Illinois (Big 10 tourney champ) beats Iowa State (Big 12 tourney champ) – I have felt that the Big 10 has had a slightly better tournament so far, and so the Big 10 champ moves on. UConn will claim the East.

West – UNC (ACC champ) beats Alabama. Arizona (Pac 12 champ) beats Clemson. UNC beats Arizona (since I have felt that the ACC has had a better tournament so far – although the Pac 12 has also out-performed expectations) to claim the West.

South – Houston (Big 12 champ) beats Duke. NC State (ACC tourney champ) beats Marquette – need to have at least one crazy upset). Houston beats NC State since regular season champs beat tourney champs in this strategy to claim the South.

Midwest – Purdue (Big 10 champ) beats Gonzaga. Tennessee (SEC champ) beats Creighton. Purdue beats Tennessee (since I can’t pick against my Boilers yet) to claim the Midwest.

I thought the top teams were clearly better – at this point when they only need to win 2 more games, I should take them.

Now, this is where the strategy goes crazy upsets. I picked Purdue in my insane picks and UConn in my sane picks – so obviously both of them can not advance to the championship against other regular season champions. So, North Carolina will play Houston for the championship.

On one hand, Houston was the higher ranked team going in and came from the conference perceived to be the best going into the tournament. UNC however is clearly from the conference that has performed the best during the tournament. So – the tie-breaker goes to the fact that Elizabeth’s dad went to UNC. My picks this year have been about going with my heart of what I would like to see. And if my Boilers don’t win (the team I desire upon all desire to win) and UConn doesn’t win (the team that my head says should win), picking a team that my family has ties to makes sense.

So – there we go. The Lunatic’s second chance picks will be the 4 favorites making it to the Final 4, and then have chaos happen in Arizona.

That should be relatively easy for all of you to stomp. Good luck to everyone with your second chance picks!!!!

So, Kevin Flippen invited me back this week to his podcast to preview the upcoming Sweet 16. Kevin and I each gave our thoughts in approximately 16 minutes for the Sweet 16 (although I probably caused us to go long).

If you are looking for some extra thoughts on how to fill out your Second Chance Pool – or simply want to hear some fun ramblings from the Lunatic and then some good advice from Kevin, check out the podcast on YouTube!!!!

https://youtu.be/c6ephgo3Se4

Ten reasons to do the Stomp the Lunatic Second Chance Pool

• You no longer have a Final Four team left in your real bracket after your cute picks of 3 and 4 seeds watched Auburn, Baylor, Kentucky and Kansas all lose before the end of the first weekend.
• You want another chance to say that you had a perfect bracket after your billion dollar picks were ruined in the second game when Duquesne upset BYU.
• You want to have a chance to pick all 4 top seeds to make it to the Final Four and have a reasonable chance of that actually happening.
• With 4 ACC teams making it to the Sweet 16, you want to jump on the Clemson and NC State bandwagons to pick all ACC finals in the West (UNC vs Clemson) and South (Duke vs NC State) regions.
• Because no one is willing to do a pool with you to see who will win Deal or No Deal Island or the Amazing Race.
• You always wanted to pick a bracket by flipping a coin, and with all the chalk winning so far, the games literally all could be 50/50 games for the rest of the tournament.
• With the popularity of the women’s game, you want to pick the Sweet 16 based on which of the women’s teams have gone farthest (UConn, NC State, Duke and Gonzaga are in the Women’s Sweet 16).
• You wanted to have a dogs vs. cats final four, and realized that the possibility of Huskies vs. Tigers and Bulldogs vs. Cougars was too good to pass up.
• It is another – and more importantly, it is the last chance in 2024 to STOMP THE LUNATIC.
• It’s absolutely FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s right – your entry fee already covers your Second Chance Pool entry – and so there is absolutely no good reason not to do the Second Chance Pool. You even have all Thursday afternoon to do them, since the games don’t start until 7:09 pm. Good luck to everyone in stomping the Lunatic a second time!!!

ESPN was doing a piece on the efforts to expand the NCAA Tournament (which I have ton of thoughts about for a later rant – or several rants).

It looks like they have been looking at options to expand to 72, 76 or 80 teams – and according to the article on ESPN, both the Big 12 and SEC commissioners have offered expansion options.

But Greg Sankey was quoted in the article saying this. “That just tells you that the bandwidth inside the top 50 is highly competitive. We are giving away highly competitive opportunities for automatic qualifiers, and I think that pressure is going to rise as we have more competitive basketball leagues at the top end because of expansion.”

While I appreciate that his statements have a decent amount of truth in them, they are very self-serving and it is clear he is trying to simply get a larger share of the revenues.

His comments about expansion are probably accurate. If you look at the Big 12, they added teams like Houston and BYU – and they did well in the conference as more teams started falling to 10-8 or 9-9 in the conference, and yet when there is only 36 at large bids, the reality is you can’t give the Big 12 2 more bids because they got better. You are still likely looking at the 6-8 spots they get. So they have gotten better and the number of spots available really don’t change. The SEC is going to be a lot tougher next season when they add Texas and Oklahoma.

That being said, I don’t feel any sympathy for them – the SEC knew what they were doing and the money it was worth to add those two schools. I don’t feel that it is necessary to take money away from the other conferences in basketball because the SEC wants all the football money.

The part that really rubbed me wrong (and the rest of the college basketball world) is the statement of giving away bids to automatic qualifiers. There is a little bit of truth here. UConn beat Stetson by 39 points. Odds are, if St. John’s, Seton Hall or Providence was given that spot, they would have been closer to making it a competitive game – so you don’t have the top 68 teams.

But here is the problem with that – those teams played their way in by claiming their conference’s title. We could probably debate the wisdom of having a end-of-season week long tournament deciding that bid over the 16-20 games the teams played against each other. But the path was clear – and they earned their spot. And these one-bid conferences simply don’t get the opportunities. If I follow Sankey’s advice, I never see an upset by FDU or Princeton, or St. Peter’s. I also probably lose out on the upsets by Duquesne, Grand Canyon and James Madison this year. When the mid-majors don’t get an opportunity outside of a rare road game to play, how do we know which 25-7 team is good enough to compete. The automatic bids need to be there – you can’t leave a conference out of the championship.

Well – there is an irony here. After Sankey made his comments, only 4 protected seeds did not make it to the Sweet 16. #4 Kansas was done in by injuries – still hung on to win against Samford, and even stayed close to Gonzaga for a half before the lack of players caught up to them. #3 Baylor had no problems in the first round but were upset by Clemson in the second round – while an upset, a 6 seed upsetting a 3 seed isn’t a huge shock.

So that leaves two teams who lost in the first round. where the Ivy League champion Yale knocked off 4 seed Auburn and the Horizon champion Oakland knocked off 3 seed Kentucky. Two of the best teams in the SEC getting knocked out by the types of teams that Greg Sankey was complaining about taking away opportunities to his conference.

Well – it seems like those teams belong based on their victories this year. It is sad that they would even need to make that case – the Cinderella upsets are some of the best things about March (well – when they don’t happen to the school you are rooting for).

And lets be fair, Tennessee and Alabama are doing just fine in the Sweet 16, and both have impressive offensive teams that could surprise everyone and win the whole thing.

But you have to admit that there was a little bit of karma that the two biggest upsets in this year’s tournament happened to the league who had their commissioner basically say that 8 of the 68 spots available wasn’t enough.

Well – while I am sure all of us are ready for Thursday to be here and have the Sweet 16 begin, it is Monday. I thought about blogging about some of the women’s tournament games (there are a couple of really good ones – as UCLA is only up 2 against Creighton, and Iowa is only up 5 against West Virginia). But then I realized, I have tons of material to catch up on.

Now that the games of the first weekend are over with, and I am not trying to handicap 52 games, I should go back and check up on how my bracketology did. This is always a nervous moment for me – as I hate the idea of not doing a good job.

This year, I have two things to check – my bracketology, and my imaginary committee’s bracketology. I got 66 of 68 teams right – while my committee only got 65 of 68 teams. So, it appears that I am better on my own than with a whole bunch of models. Before we compare against the media, lets quickly talk about who I selected wrong.

Basically, I missed on Mississippi State and Virginia. Lets face it – I wanted UVa to get in, but I didn’t expect them to get in with their metrics. And as for Mississippi State, I figured with all the bid stealers, a team that didn’t go better than 50% in their conference would get eliminated. But apparently, the committee went with the metrics on MSU and ignored the metrics for Virginia – who would have guess that.

My committee got MSU right (because it was a lot more tied to the metrics), but missed on Virginia, Texas A&M and Northwestern. So – not the best. If I ever do this exercise again, I will need to really improve the metrics.

My comparison method uses the scoring method from the Bracket Matrix – this is for two reasons – it is as sensible as any other metric, and it tracks so many people’s brackets that the media picks are already scored. You get 3 points for selecting the team correctly, 2 points for getting the seed correct, and 1 point for getting a team within 1 seed line.

For my picks, I selected 66 teams correctly (198 points), got 40 teams seeded exactly correct (80 points), and 60 teams seeded within 1 seed (60 points). 338 points is not bad for me – it is in the middle of the bracket matrix – definitely not the best, but certainly not the worst.

The committee did not do as well. It only got 65 correct (195 points), 35 teams seeded exactly correct (70 points), and 57 within 1 seed (57 points) for only 322 points.

So – I crushed my imaginary committee. A little sad for me because while it shows that I can do better than some statistics, I had high hopes that the statistics would make my seeding better.

Anyways – the real question isn’t how I did against the entire bracket matrix – it is how I did against the media. And it turns out – not that bad.

• FOX – Mike Decourcy – 345 (67, 41, 62)
• Sports Illustrated – Kevin Sweeney – 344 (67, 41, 61)
• THE LUNATIC – 338 (66, 40, 60)
• The Sporting News – Bill Bender – 337 (67, 38, 60)
• ESPN – Joe Lunardi – 336 (67, 38, 59)
• USA Today – Paul Myerberg, Erick Smith and Eddie Timanus332 (67, 36, 59)
• CBS – Jerry Palm – 323 (66, 35, 55)
• LUNATIC COMMITTEE – 322 (65, 35, 57)

So, congratulations to Mike Decourcy – as while I don’t know of all the media members that create a bracket prediction, he did the best of the media members I was tracking.

However, the Lunatic is extremely pleased – while I got one less correct than ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, I did such a better job at seeding that I beat him by 2 points. And I crushed Jerry Palm from CBS (which is a shame – he had this great site that covered the RPI before moving to CBS).

Regardless, any time the Lunatic can beat 4 of the 6 media members, that qualifies as a good job for the year. Still a little disappointed that his committee idea crashed and burned – but glad that my last second change to put my committee vote as its own did so well.

I will at some point have to clean up the bracketology page – it is still stuck on what it said Saturday morning… There is only so much time in the day (and the Lunatic’s old age simply requires more sleep than he used to – he is still sleep deprived, just he needs more sleep to function). That might be an after the tournament project (or a project for the week leading up to the Final Four – where we have to wait 5 full days for basketball to resume.

I was too tired to realize it last night – but midnight on Sunday was pretty symbolic as Yale was getting crushed by San Diego State as the clock struck midnight on the East Coast.

That is because with all the favorites winning, Yale’s elimination was the last true Cinderella left at the dance. Sure – NCAA State is an 11 seed, but it is hard to call the ACC Tournament Champions a Cinderella team.

It is kind of crazy because we did have a decent number of upsets in the first round, but by the time the dust settled on the second round, status quo had taken over. The only non-protected seeds advancing were #5-San Diego State, #5-Gonzaga, #6-Clemson and #11-NC State.

So when the clock struck midnight, Cinderella really did leave the dance. Unfortunately, no glass slippers were found. Maybe next year, she will return for a longer visit – it is always nice when Cinderella is still dancing.

I might have to wait until the morning to send out an email to everyone. But I did want to congratulate our 2nd round leaders very quickly.

Right now, we have a tie at the top between Carrie Viera and Adam Levine at 520 points. They are followed closely by Kennedy Urban, Charlie Hodgson, Matt Richter, Ann Hawkins, and Carlie Reynolds – who are all just 10 points behind. And 10 people are tied for 8th just 20 points behind. We have a very tight race for this year’s tournament!

In the Upset Pool, Tom Forrest is leading with 213 points. He is followed by Chris Franklin (211), Adam Levine (204), Taylor Early (200), and Debbe Evans (197).

The Lunatic is hanging around – he is in a large group tied at 25th – just 40 points behind. With 36 people behind by the total of just one Sweet 16 game, it is still anyone’s game.

But for those of you who already have lost your eventual champion, don’t despair. The Second Chance Pool is available for you – and it is completely free. Just login, enter who you think will win now that we know the sweet 16, and hope that your new picks will do the best!!!!

Good luck to everyone!!!!! And the Lunatic now desperately needs to go back to sleep!

I had fallen asleep. Houston was up 13 points with about 4 minutes to play. I think I saw San Diego State up by 24 points at halftime. I had the game playing on the computer but just couldn’t keep my eyes open. Then, I hear screaming on my computer. All of a sudden, it is a 5 point game.

Apparently, with 1:28 left, LJ Cryer had put Houston up by 10 points from the free throw line. But then the Aggies’ Tyrece Radford made a jumper to cut the lead to 8, they force a turnover, and Wade Taylor IV hit a three-pointer to make it a 5 point lead.

Then, after Emanuel Sharp hit two free throws for the Cougars, Taylor was fouled shooting a three pointer – and he hit all 3 free throws to make it a 4 point game with just 53 seconds. This was also important since it was the 5th foul on Cryer. The Aggies intentionally foul Sharp again, who this time only hits one of the free throws.

The Aggies charge the ball up the court, Radford missed a layup, but Solomon Washington got the rebound and hit the shot to cut the lead to 3. In 45 seconds, the 10 point lead was now just 3 points. And the Lunatic thought “I must be dreaming”

With it being back to a one possession game, the Aggies play straight-up defense, and Washington blocks Jamal Shead’s jumper after Houston had run the shot clock down – setting the stage for insanity.

The Aggies rush the ball down the court, and Taylor misses the shot, Radford tries to tip it in but misses it but A&M get the ball back out of bounds. Taylor misses a three-pointer, gets his own rebound, and misses a second three-pointer. And with 2 seconds left, the scrum for the rebound leads to a jump ball. The Aggies have the possession arrow – and so they get the ball again.

This time, a low pass goes to the top of the key and Anderson Garcia picks up the ball almost at his feet, and heaves up a desperation three-pointer that goes in – we are going to overtime!!!!

In the overtime period, Houston jumped back out to a lead off a three-pointer by Sharp, two free throws by Shead, and a nice layup by Mylik Wilson set up by a pretty pass from Shead. But the Aggies wouldn’t give up, and the Houston starters kept fouling out. They had already lost Javier Francis and Cryer in regulation, then they lost Sharp. And with just 18 seconds left in the game, Shead got his 5th foul as Taylor drove to the basket. Taylor would hit the free throws to cut the lead to 3 points.

On the inbounds, Houston lobbed the ball to seldom used Ryan Elvin. Elvin had shot just 4 free throws in the entire season, and now, Houston’s tournament was in his hands. Elvin missed the first free throw but made the second one to make it a 4 point game.

This time, the magic wasn’t there. Radford would miss a three pointer, and Mylik Wilson got the rebound. He would get fouled and make a free throw to make it a 5 point game. And the remaining shots from Texas A&M would miss until the clock buzzed.

It is not often you see a team win with 4 starters having fouled out of the game. It is not often you see a team come back from being down 10 points with less than 90 seconds left to force overtime. We almost saw a #1 seed go down in one of the last games of the first weekend.

But at the end of the day, there are no style points. Houston survived the upset bid by Texas A&M, and they advance to the Sweet 16. And in the process of writing this, San Diego State finally finished off Yale in an 85-57 blowout. So the Sweet 16 is set.

We will have UConn, San Diego St, Iowa St and Illinois in the East. North Carolina, Alabama, Arizona and Clemson in the West. Houston, Duke, Marquette and NC State in the South. And Purdue, Gonzaga, Tennessee and Creighton in the Midwest.