Stomp The Lunatic

Every year there are scenarios that are hard to figure out what the committee will do.

This year’s dilemna is what to do with the SEC. Right when you think you have everything figured out, you have Tuesday and Wednesday.

• #1 Auburn loses to #22 Texas A&M
• #4 Tennessee loses to Ole Miss
• #15 Missouri loses to Oklahoma
• #25 Mississippi State loses to Texas
• Vanderbilt loses to Arkansas

Only 3 teams that were ahead in the standings won – and two of them (#19 Kentucky and Georgia) were playing the last place and second-to-last place teams who have only beaten 5 SEC teams between then. You could even argue that #5 Florida beating #7 Alabama was a little bit of an upset since it was at Alabama.

After there was some separation between the bubble teams, the teams 11th – 14th in the standings all won to make the waters murky again. Should lead to a really fun set of regular season finales and SEC tournament. But makes for a complicated task of picking the final at-large teams.

Can you really take a team that goes 5-13 in conference?

Can you really leave out a team that has beaten #14 Louisville, #15 Missouri, #17 Michigan, #24 Arizona and #25 Mississippi State?

If you answer No to both of those questions, you have a problem since the team in both questions is Oklahoma (if they lose on Saturday to Texas).

Since I give the bracketologists a lot of criticism, I have to thank ESPN’s Joe Lunardi – since he did some research for me. The worst conference record to ever get an at-large bid was 2 years ago when West Virginia was 7-11 in the Big 12. If Oklahoma beats Texas on Saturday, they will both be 6-12 with some pretty big Quad 1 wins.

I personally would prefer the committee look elsewhere. I feel the conference schedule is important – I would rather see the 4th place team from the ACC or Big East get in over the 13th place team from the SEC.

Lets take 2023, WV got in where everyone talked about how brutal it was to play in the Big 12 – they were clearly the strongest conference. 70% of the conference got invited (7 of 10 teams). Of course, West Virginia lost in the first round to Maryland. And none of the Big 12 teams made it to the Final 4.

I am not debating that the SEC is the strongest conference. But at a certain point, winning games has to matter. The conferences play over 60% of their games against themselves. Trying to truly base who is the best conference based on how teams did in a Thanksgiving break tournament is impossible. Do you really leave out teams that have won 22-23 games because they did it against weaker teams?

I get it – playing Auburn, Tennessee, Florida and Alabama is tough – and you are likely losing all those games. But guess what – playing Houston, Texas Tech, and Iowa State isn’t that much easier. How about Duke, Clemson and Louisville – or Michigan State, Wisconsin, Maryland, Michigan and Purdue. Every team has 3-4 games against highly ranked teams that they should be expected to lose.

I don’t know what the committee will do with teams like Texas and Oklahoma. I am sure I will have more to say about it in the coming week. Maybe things will get a little clearer by then. Probably not – if the madness has anything to say about it.

For those who want to know what it is like to be the Lunatic in March, last night paints a perfect example. I worked until 6:15 pm and left to pick up Katie from her tennis lesson. Everyone was still pretty tired from our trip to New York, and so I was persuaded (rather easily) into getting Chick-Fil-A for dinner. As I am eating, I think to myself that I really should fix the code that pulls the box scores while the family enjoys dinner and watching Big Bang Theory re-runs.

This is when I realize that Purdue is playing – glad to see that they are beating Rutgers at half-time. So, I flip over on my phone to watch Georgia hold on to their lead against South Carolina – a pretty important victory for them on the bubble. By this point, it is around 8:15 pm, the kids have left and Elizabeth has started to watch Jeopardy (we DVR a lot of shows so we don’t watch commercials). I start thinking again about whether or not I will work on the boxscores or watch the Purdue game – instead I get sucked into Jeopardy.

By the time, Jeopardy was over, Purdue had extended its lead to 27 points. I decide not to subject Elizabeth to watching the game – she will have to watch more than enough basketball this month. But I still can’t help but watch on my phone. By the time the game ends around 9:15 pm, my old body is starting to fade towards sleep. But there is still so much to do. Lots of interesting games are on, and I start thinking about updating my bubble watch (since Georgia and North Carolina won and Texas is doing well against Mississippi State).

I head upstairs to leave Elizabeth to her TV shows to do my work. I should know better, sitting in the bed turns into lying down in the bed, and that turns into my eyes starting to close. In this very moment, I realize that one of the reason I didn’t ever do a bubble watch in the past is because updating all the NET rankings and records manually will take me all night (and of course, we know the status of my datapulls). I typically remember this each year when I start my bracketology, and by the time the tournament is over, forget about how much of a headache it is to maintain a quality bracketology page. Design thoughts of better ways to do this go through my head. It is now well after 10 pm, and in the process I haven’t opened my laptop but have enjoyed the distraction of watching the Texas vs Mississippi State game go to overtime (the Longhorns would eventually pull out a huge upset to keep their bubble hopes alive).

I start to write a quick blog post about what is happening on the bubble games when I notice Ohio State and Nebraska have gone to overtime. I decide to post my quick blog and watch the Ohio State game, except apparently in my tiredness, never pushed the publish button. The game goes to commercial and my eyes shut. When they open, the game has somehow gone from 3 minutes left in overtime to 4 minutes left in double overtime.

Next thing I know, Elizabeth comes in seeing me asleep holding my phone in both hands with the black screen saying something on the lines of “Your game has ended”. The Buckeyes did win in double overtime but I could not tell you how. I put my phone on my nightstand and go back to sleep.

In my dreams, I think I see Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton hit a three point shot to give the Buckeyes a lead – or maybe that happened before I really fell asleep. It is hard for the Lunatic to separate dreams from reality in March. Such a wonderful time of year!

At some point, I will have to catch up – a lot happened on the bubble Tuesday night as the confusing SEC bubble got even more confusing, as Texas and Arkansas had looked like they played themselves out of the tournament on Saturday to win major upsets to get back into the conversation late Tuesday evening – at least I think they did.

March Madness is here – such wonderful memories. Such wonderful dreams. Typically there is at least one nightmare since at the end of the day, only one team can claim the title. But that nightmare is worth the fun that the madness brings.

And this time, I will have to remember to hit publish.

So – we all know that I have my bracketology page. We all know that I will likely do horrible at predicting who will be in the tournament. And yet, we all know that I will continue to try and come up with a bracket.

Well, this was a fun weekend for me and my family. Elizabeth is a huge fan of NSYNC and Joey Fatone. And we found out that Joey was doing a limited starring in Broadway’s & Juliet. I love Broadway shows. Elizabeth loves Joey Fatone. How could we possibly pass this opportunity up? So, we dragged Katie and Charlie with us Saturday morning on the train to New York so we could see Joey Fatone. To be fair, the kids were willing participants and had a great time.

Of course, this meant that we would spend a large portion of our weekend on the train. And so while I still need to fix my data pull scripts, I decided that I would create my version of the Bubble Watch.

I was angry with ESPN because of their analytical model – it seems ridiculous to me that it basically thinks 14 of the 16 SEC teams are going to make the tournament. It has finally started to push the teams in 13th and 14th place to somewhere between 30-40%, some of those teams were over 50% before the weekend began.

So, I decided that I would make my own bubble watch. It was a tremendous amount of work, but thanks to delays, I also had 17 hours of time on the train with poor internet access.

So my bracketology page has begun for 2025 – in the format of tracking the bubble teams. It is long and rambling and a pretty good tracker of all the teams on the bubble (and a few teams that really have no chance). I still have to catch up my comments on the Mountain West and Atlantic 10, but I am so tired. It was a really fun weekend, but it also was a long weekend. And I can’t let myself get too sleep deprived just yet. I am getting older and simply can’t stay up as late as I used to – lets save that sleep deprivation for at least when the conference tournament games are happening.

Enjoy the Bracketology blog – simply click on the Bracketology link at the top of the blog.

So, one of my normal complaints is about the media bracketologists – which leads me every year to do my insane bracketology where I do what they have been doing all year in two weeks. But as much as I complain about it, it doesn’t change the fact that I love reading it. I love anything written about college basketball – but seeing people write about their chances of making the dance is right up the Lunatic’s alley.

I particularly liked a series that ESPN did called Bubble Watch. Instead of what Joe Lunardi does, where he would write one paragraph about one or two teams and then list out their 68 teams, they really started to dig in to the teams who were fighting each game for a chance to make the tournament. Like I always say in my bracketology page, everyone knows Auburn and Duke are going to be #1 seeds – the drama is whether or not teams like Georgia are going to get that one last upset they need to convince the committee they deserve to keep playing.

So, they would break the teams up into Locks, Should Be In, and Work to Do. And then they would give a paragraph about how they did in their last game and what is next for the teams that still need to do more. They would sometimes give their opinion on where they stood – but normally it was more of a story of what they were doing. Such as talking about how this star player is going to need to keep up their play to help them upset the ranked team they are about to play.

Well, the paragraphs still are mostly that, but ESPN ruined it. Because they have put their teams in the groups based on probabilities from the ESPN Analytics model that forecasts the season 10,000 times to determine where they think the season will end up.

This has ruined it for me for three reasons. The first one is that now it is part of the ESPN+ package, so you only can read it if you pay for it. The Lunatic is lucky enough that he has it through his bundle to get Disney+ and Hulu, but it stinks that this kind of article would be considered premium content. Their opening line on Georgia this weekend was “Up against the best team in the country on Saturday, Georgia literally never led Auburn en route to its fourth loss in a row (and ninth in 11 games).” Not that thought-provoking – they needed a win, they played the #1 team in the country, and as happened with 23 of 25 other games, they also couldn’t knock off the Tigers. I enjoy reading it because it is a nice way of finding out who is still left on the bubble team’s schedules – but it is not like I can’t just look up the TV schedule.

The second one is that they include the probability that the team wins the conference tournament. It isn’t BUBBLE watch if they guarantee their dance ticket by winning their conference’s automatic bid. We want to understand their chances if they need an at-large bid. They have George Mason in the Work to Do category because they have a 27% chance to make the tournament. George Mason is 20-6 in the Atlantic 10 conference with a NET of 66 and a 0-3 record against Quad 1 opponents with no more chances before the conference tournament to get a top victory. Any of you who have read my bracketology know that teams who have not beaten a Quad 1 team do not get an at-large bid. (To be fair to the committee, that makes sense – if you have never beaten anyone of the quality that is going to be in the tournament, what makes you believe that they will win 6 in March).

While they mention in their paragraph that the odds are basically based on them winning the conference tournament, an article talking about the bubble should be giving realistic chances about the bubble. What is worse is that they seem to mention a couple times what they think the probability is if they need an at-large bid (for example, they gave North Texas a 27% chance to make it – but only a 6% chance if they don’t get the American conference automatic bid). If they have created those probabilities, maybe we should be looking at those since the topic of the Bubble Watch is their chances on the bubble.

But the most offensive part for me is their predicted probabilities are awful and make no sense. And it is obvious their probabilities are poor right off the bat as they first talk about the SEC, the best conference currently in basketball (at least according to the analytics). I think that it is the best this season based on watching teams like Auburn, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and Texas A&M, but it is always amazing to me how that doesn’t always lead to success in March. But I digress – lets look at how they rank the SEC bubble teams.

• Vanderbilt (59% – 10th in SEC at 6-8, 18-9, NET 43)
• Oklahoma (55% – tied 13th in SEC at 4-10, 17-10, NET 51)
• Texas (52% – tied 11th in SEC at 5-9, 16-11, NET 38)
• Arkansas (43% – tied 11th in SEC at 5-9, 16-11, NET 39)
• Georgia (21% – tied 13th in SEC at 4-10, 16-11, NET 40)

So, this screams at me to start – because remember that the NET ranking is one of the main rankings that the committee uses – after all, it is the NCAA’s ranking system. So, even though Oklahoma is ranked last in the NET ranking of these 5 teams, and last in the SEC standings of these 5 teams, the Sooners still have a 55% chance of making the tournament.

Lets remember that the Sooners have to win 5 games in the SEC tournament to get the automatic bid – even if we say that they have a 50% chance in each of those games, that still gives them only a 3.1% chance of claiming the auto-bid. So this means their analytics think that Oklahoma really has about a 50% chance of getting an at-large bid.

Then, I thought, maybe Oklahoma has a winnable schedule over their last 4 games. Then I look as they play #17 Kentucky, at Ole Miss, #14 Missouri and at Texas. Their BPI model actually forecasts that their expected win total is only 1.4 more victories (where they will likely not be favored to win any of the 4 games since all 4 of those teams are above them in the BPI standings).

Meanwhile, Texas according to their model has a chance of winning 2.3 of their last 4 games (including being favored at home against the Sooners). So, lets think about this for a minute.

• Currently, Texas is one win ahead of Oklahoma in the conference standings.
• Texas is currently 13 teams ahead of Oklahoma in the NCAA’s ranking system.
• ESPN’s analytic model actually believes that Texas will win more games in the remainder of the season than Oklahoma – so the Longhorns will expand the gap between the teams.
• And yet, Oklahoma has a 3% better chance of making the tournament over Texas.

Right now, the NCAA rankings have all 4 SEC teams ranked higher than the Sooners. 3 of the 4 teams are ranked higher than the Sooners in the conference standings. And their own predictive model ranks 3 of the 4 teams as stronger teams than the Sooners (and ironically, the team that ranks lower is Vanderbilt – the only one that their model says has a better chance of making the tournament at 59%).

Basically, their own predictive model says that most likely, Oklahoma will finish 5-13 in the SEC. While I don’t have exact numbers on it, I don’t remember any teams that had that bad of a conference record and still got an at-large bid. And yet, ESPN wants us to believe this type of team has over a 50% chance to make the tournament.

Sure, Oklahoma’s resume is strange – they have 5 Quad 1 victories. They went 13-0 in the non-conference season before the SEC tore them apart. They might get the upset they need in the last 4 games to convince the committee to give them a chance. But it is ridiculous to say that they have a 50/50 chance – and a better chance than Texas, Arkansas and Georgia – which their own model thinks are better teams….

By the way, as I ranted about this, Georgia had a roller-coaster game. The Bulldogs jumped out at home on #3 Florida to a 39-13 lead, watched the Gators come all the way back to take a 2 point lead with a minute left, and then outscored the #3 team in the country 10-3 in the final minute to pull off a major upset.

Things were so much better in the ESPN Bubble Watch when it simply said things like this (who knows what ESPN will write tomorrow, but this is what the Lunatic wants to see):

Work to Do: Georgia

In an emotional game on Tuesday night, the Bulldogs jumped out to a 26 point lead on the #3 team in the country just to watch Florida take the lead in the final minute. And then Georgia’s sophomore guard, Blue Cain, hit a clutch three-pointer from the wing that might have saved the Bulldogs season. Georgia would this time hold onto the lead for the final 47 seconds and the fans stormed the court to celebrate after following the public address announcers instructions to wait 90 seconds so the teams could safely leave. The Bulldogs will hope to ride the momentum of beating a top 3 team when they travel this weekend to Austin to play the Texas Longhorns.

No probability off what honestly is a broken model. No statement that claims the committee must select a team based on these metrics. Just a simple paragraph stating the excitement that was generated from an awesome game.

2024 was such a wonderful March for the Lunatic. The Lunatic still got beat, but getting to watch his Boilers go all the way to the championship game was a dream come true. Sure – it would have been better had the Connecticut Huskies didn’t crush us in the final. But, honestly, I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get to watch my Boilers play in the Final 4 – so making it to the championship game was amazing.

Of course, with my luck, there is always something new to deal with. Last year, I watched as my entire WordPress site got deleted. This year, I watched as all my databases got moved to new servers so that none of my scripts worked. And to make me work harder, the NCAA modified their site a little bit – so will have to see how much sleep deprivation I have while I try to pull the box scores.

At this point, the most important part of the website is ready – I fixed all the database links so that the pages you use to register for the pool and enter your picks all work and point to the new 2025 tables. And so, I am happy to announce the 2025 Stomp the Lunatic tournament!!!!!

The Lunatic is back for another month of sleep deprivation, looking through stat sheets in a foolish attempt to show he can predict college basketball games.  This will likely end in a thorough stomping, but it should be a wild and entertaining ride.

I will eventually send out an email to invite you all to Stomp the Lunatic!  But I can’t send out an email stating that it must be March if it is still February.  Not to mention we all know that I am horrible at managing my email lists.

That being said, Selection Sunday is just three weeks away.  March 16th will be here before we know it. Have no fears – while the Lunatic might have tons of edits that he wants to make to his website, the Lunatic will be ready for the NCAA Tournament to start.

While it is certainly not necessary, the registration link is live for this year’s tournament (that being said, it is typically easier to register when you enter your picks). The Lunatic’s favorite time of the year is almost here – I hope that all of you are ready to STOMP THE LUNATIC!!!!!

The Lunatic is lurking. As many of us get ready to enjoy the Super Bowl, the realization occurred to the Lunatic that his favorite time of the year is rapidly approaching. It will be March before we know it and the Lunatic must be ready.

So over the next week, he will be making sure all the links are set up to allow you all to enter your picks and Stomp the Lunatic! You can continue to see past results or see the Lunatic start to blog about college basketball. But for now, please do not register or login and ignore anything stating the tournament has started. I put a fake bracket together to ensure that all the forms are pointing to the right tables – so you will probably see something silly like my daughter Katie getting every game correct as Purdue wins the 2025 tournament. I will post again when the site is ready.

Enjoy the upcoming month of college basketball – and of course the Super Bowl this weekend!!!

It is almost February, and so it is obviously time for the Lunatic to start preparing for his annual sleep deprivation exercise. This post is the start to ensure that the site is still working correctly (since I have had a moment where the whole website went down).

Sadly, WordPress doesn’t seem to be updating. The codes have to be tested to ensure you all can make your picks for the contest. And to make things complicated, the NCAA changed their website slightly, which might mean none of my datapull scripts work any more.

But that will not stop the Lunatic!!!! March is almost here – and the Madness must begin!

It might not have been competitive on the court as the UConn Huskies destroyed everyone in their path. But it was certainly a very competitive Stomp the Lunatic contest – 39 entries correctly predicted before the tournament started that Connecticut would beat Purdue in the final. Considering last year, only 10 people correctly picked Connecticut to win, it is amazing that so many people got both final teams correct along with the correct champion.

All the pools were super close. Congratulations to Will Caldwell, who managed to win the Stomp the Lunatic contest by 10 points over David Ogle.

Congratulations to Ann Schumaker, who managed to win the Upset Pool by a single point over Gus Woodburn.

And congratulations to our co-champions in the second chance pool, as we had a 4 way tie between Jen Miller, Karl Knox, David Ogle and Will Richter.

In fact, congratulations should go out to all of our winners.

STANDARD POOL

1st) Will Caldwell (1230)

2nd) David Ogle (1220)

3rd tie) Kelly Woods and Scott Grimes (1210)

5th) Joseph Laucius (1200)

6th) Laura Carini (1190)

7th tie) Chris Franklin, Chris Peterson, Lainey Miller, Steve Glass, Dan Fischer, and Ann Schumaker (1180)

LAST) Ann Wilson (250) – sorry, but we need to say the standard line……you should not have challenged Will (since we know everyone should challenge the Lunatic)

UPSET POOL

1st) Ann Schumaker (310)

2nd) Gus Woodburn (309)

3rd) Taylor Early (293)

4th) Wil Austin (289)

5th) Elizabeth Betz (281)

SECOND CHANCE POOL

1st tie) Jen Miller (800)

1st tie) Karl Knox (800)

1st tie) David Ogle (800)

1st tie) Will Richter (800)

It isn’t much of a consolation for the Lunatic, as he would have happily been stomped by all of you if it meant that Purdue would have scored 16 more points tonight. But as far as the pool is concerned, the Lunatic put up a relatively strong showing. His sane picks finished in a tie for 17th, so if we account for the tie-breaker, only 17 people Stomped the Lunatic this year.

Purdue made it to the Championship game. Only 17 people Stomped the Lunatic. The Lunatic must still be dreaming. He actually probably desperately needs some good sleep. But I am sure that the Lunatic will wake up again next March, as he will recover from watching Purdue be so close to a title and yet so far from a title.

Thank you to all of you for helping make this such a fun tournament for me to run each year, and humoring me as I rant about my favorite time of year – March Madness! It makes me so happy to blog about the tournament, and that so many of you come back each year for another chance to Stomp the Lunatic – hopefully also enjoying the blog in the process!!!!

Congratulations again to our 2024 Stomp the Lunatic Champion – Will Caldwell, our Upset Pool Champion – Ann Schumaker, and our Second Chance Pool Champions – Jen Miller, Karl Knox, David Ogle and Will Richter. And of course, congratulations to our 2024 men’s national champions – the Connecticut Huskies!!!!

The UConn Huskies guards were just too much. Zach Edey scored 37 points for the Boilers but the Huskies defense shut everyone else for the Boilers down.

Tristen Newton had 20, Stephon Castle had 15 and Cam Spencer had 11 as the Huskies backcourt just dominated on both halves of the court. The game was never in doubt as the Huskies won 75-60.

Maybe the most impressive part was the Huskies out-rebounded the Boilers 35-28. Maybe the most impressive part was they held the 2nd best three-point shooting team in the country to 1-7 (14.3%). Maybe the most impressive part was how they would run their offensive sets for 25 seconds just to suddenly have a wide open shot.

The Huskies outscored their opponents this March by 140 points, the most dominant performance in NCAA tournament history. They entered the tournament as the prohibitive favorite and destroyed everyone in their path as they proved they were the best team in college basketball.

Congratulations to the Connecticut Huskies, the 2024 men’s national champions!