Stomp The Lunatic

Iowa jumped out to a 10-0 lead to start the game. But South Carolina started off the second quarter on a 7-0 run to tie the game.

The stars have done what you would expect. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark had 21 points in the first half. Kamilla Cardoso had 11 points for South Carolina.

There have been a couple keys. Raven Johnson has played incredible defense on Clark in the second quarter, holding the star to 3 points in the second quarter after a hot start. This also included a steal at the end of the half as Clark was trying to run the clock out that led to a layup to make it 49-46.

South Carolina has dominated the boards – they already have 12 offensive rebounds, giving them multiple extra chances.

But maybe the biggest story is the South Carolina bench, as Sania Feagin, Milaysia Fulwiley and Tessa Johnson have outscored the Iowa bench 22-0.

South Carolina also has scored the first 6 points of the second half – so Iowa will need to do something to stop the Gamecocks’ momentum.

I have to admit – sleep took over last night. I had all these plans to blog all Sunday. And then I slept a good chunk of the day away. It was so nice to sleep.

So I am behind on my blog but excited for the women’s championship game!!!!

Caitlin Clark will try to cement her legacy by adding the one thing that has alluded her.

South Carolina will try to go undefeated while avenging their only loss in the last 2 seasons – a Final 4 loss to the Hawkeyes.

We have the player of the year against the most dominant team in women’s basketball. Should be a great game!!! And tip-off is minutes away!!!

Alabama gave it a decent try to stop the defending champions. Both teams went on 7-0 runs at some point to start the second half. With a little under 13 minutes to play, Grant Nelson hit a jumper to tie the game at 56.

But as the Huskies do, that was as close as Alabama was going to get. Stephon Castle got fouled after an offensive rebound and got two from the line, and then scored again on a jumper. Then, Samson Johnson got a dunk and Alex Karaban got a layup to quickly spread the lead to 8.

At this point, the teams would keep trading baskets to about the 3 minute mark as Karaban hit a three-pointer to make the lead 11, just to watch Mark Sears hit a super deep three-pointer to cut the lead back to 8.

Then, Donovan Clingan wrapped up the game. Tristen Newton found Clingan down low for a dunk to extend the lead to 10. Then, as Grant Nelson drove to the basket, Clingan blocked the shot to stop the Tide. And on the next possession Cam Spencer found Clingan in the post again for another dunk.

Tristen Newton and Cam Spencer would finish the game off with two three-pointers, and the Huskies won 86-72.

Alabama simply could not keep up their hot shooting from three-point range, and Clingan’s 4 blocks on defense made it difficult for the Tide to score points in the lane. Meanwhile, the Tide simply had no answer for the Huskies as all 5 starters scored in double digits, led by Castle’s 21 and Clingan’s 18 points.

It took a little bit longer than normal, but the Huskies still found a way to extend the lead to double digits by the end of the game. And now, they are one game away from defending their championship.

The only team left in their path in Zach Edey’s Purdue Boilermakers. One team that had everyone come back in order to try to get redemption from last year’s tournament. One team trying to keep what they won from last year’s tournament.

These teams have been on a collision course all season. UConn started the pre-season polls at 6th while the Boilers started at 3rd. UConn would only improve, staying in the top 5 all season including holding the top spot for 7 weeks. The Boilers never fell farther than 4th (after their loss to Northwestern) as they held the top spot for 5 weeks. So, if you exclude the pre-season poll, the two teams were at the top of the poll for 12 of the 19 weeks and the only 2 teams to stay in the top 5 for all 19 weeks. It should be a great championship game as both teams have proven they are the best two teams in college basketball.

The Lunatic will be excited to cheer on his Boilers on Monday night as they face the defending champion Huskies.

Alabama is doing everything possible to try to beat the UConn Huskies, and yet they are still down 4.

The pace of the game is exactly what Alabama wants. It has been a fast-paced hectic game with both teams running the ball down the court.

Alabama even jumped out to a 5 point lead with about 11 minutes in the half when Rylan Griffen made a three-pointer. But the Huskies quickly came back, running hard off defensive rebounds including a pretty upcourt pass by Tristen Newton to Donovan Clingan for a massive dunk. The teams kept trading baskets to about 5 minutes when Alabama’s Latrell Wrightsell Jr hit a three to give the Tide a lead just for the Huskies to come down the court and find Tristen Newton for a three to take the lead back.

The Huskies extended the lead to 7 as Cam Spencer hit a three-pointer and Donovan Clingan made a layup. But Mark Sears would hit a 3 pointer from the corner and an impressive scoop shot around Clingan at the buzzer to cut the Huskies lead to 44-40.

Alabama is doing everything they can at the moment. They actually shot 8-11 (72.7%) from three point range, and have the pace to be exactly what they want. But they have not had an answer for Stephon Castle who has 13 points.

It should be an exciting second half – here we go!!!

There were tons of nerve-wracking moments for the Lunatic. The Boilers jumped out to an early lead as Fletcher Loyer hit a three-pointer and Trey Kaufman-Renn hit a shot in the lane and a couple of free throws. But Purdue’s Braden Smith had a very uncharacteristic game – starting with 2 over and back turnovers. And NC State would settle down from the early start, led by DJ Horne.

There was then an unfortunate moment for the Wolfpack as Michael O’Connell off a steal drove to the basket and fell injuring his hamstring. I hated seeing it as I have remembered so many times where a Purdue player like Robbie Hummel went down with a non-contact injury. O’Connell did come back a couple of times but he was clearly not himself.

However, Jayden Taylor came in and played excellent defense. As did Ben Middlebrooks on Zach Edey as they managed to steal the ball from Edey multiple times without fouling him.

DJ Horne hit a couple of baskets to cut the lead to 3 points late in the first half, but Fletcher Loyer hit a huge three-pointer to end the half and give the Boilers a 6 point lead.

Lance Jones hit a three-pointer to lead the scoring for the 2nd half and the lead was back out to 9 points. But once again, Horne kept the Wolfpack in the game with a few baskets. This led into a very nervous time for the Lunatic as neither team could score for the next 2 1/2 minutes. Purdue would turn the ball over, but NC State couldn’t capitalize. Both teams were playing very solid defense.

Then, Zach Edey found Mason Gillis for a three pointer, and Braden Smith found Lance Jones for a three pointer. And the lead was back to double digits.

DJ Horne continued to try to chip away, as a jumper with 8 minutes made it a 49-42 game. But that was as close as the Wolfpack would get.

Over the next 5 minutes, Purdue would go on a 14-1 run, including two three pointers by Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith that put the game out of reach.

Zach Edey still led the Boilers with 20 points as so much of Purdue’s offense went through him, and Edey had a couple huge blocks on defense to keep the Wolfpack at bay. But it was a huge game from Lance Jones and Fletcher Loyer, who managed to hit some key shots at moments when the Boilers had gone cold and you could send NC State was gaining some momentum.

I think the impressive thing was that Purdue found a different way to win. NC State only sent Edey to the line once. Purdue turned the ball over 16 times. Braden Smith only got 3 points.

But the Boilers won this game on the defensive side. DJ Horne was spectacular, scoring 21 points. But they really caused DJ Burns trouble when he only got 8 points – and the other 3 starters could only score 5 more points. The Wolfpack only were able to shoot 36.8% from the field (and only 26.3% from three-point range).

It was encouraging that one of Purdue’s stars could have a rough game, they had a ton of turnovers, and yet, they still found a way to win with defense. The Boilermakers are heading to the NCAA Championship game!!!!! And the Lunatic is so very happy!!!!

The Lunatic is going so crazy right now!!! I can not even express words that show how happy I am!!!!

It was not the prettiest of games but Purdue won 63-50 and is going to get to play on Monday night for the National Championship!

I will compose myself shortly to write about the game but for right now, I simply am going to enjoy this moment!!!!

They did in a couple minutes what I tried to do in my unwritten stories blog.

– Purdue – we are a team looking for redemption

– NC State – we are a team of destiny

– Alabama – we are a team who is writing our own story

– Connecticut – we are a team defending our title

So very excited!!! So very nervous!!! I want to see Purdue win so badly!!!! I have my lucky Purdue shirt! I have my cherry coke zero in my old Purdue cup that used to help me get through late night study sessions with unhealthy amounts of soda!!!

Here we go!!!!

I had a plan – I was going to write all day. I never made it outside to exercise. Maybe tomorrow.

My blog posts took me more time to write than I had hoped because I had a few more pieces I wanted to write. But they will take a ton of time and research so they will have to wait until Sunday.

The one I will promise to eventually do is my Grading the Conferences. There are a bunch of articles that I see in the media that I try to do my own versions – of which, this is one of them.

I will also tell you one that I have seen ESPN do that I refuse to do because I hate. Each round, they do a Reseeding the Final Four / Elite Eight / Sweet 16, etc. I get what they are thinking, but at the end of the day, I think it is terribly unfair and it leads to choices that I think is unrealistic.

I know they are trying to identify what team is playing well at this very second and re-rank their chances. And they almost always read as the top 4 seeds still around are now the 1 seeds, the next top 4 seeds are now the 2 seeds, with a couple of changes simply so it is not just moving the teams down the board and they can claim they switched things up.

Why do we need to do this? Sure, it gives you a chance to try to correct a mistake by the committee on a team that you thought should have been 1 seed higher or lower.

But it normally leads to boring reads that have a horrible chance to be wrong. Just as an example from ESPN’s/

Alabama was ranked 14th of 16 in the Sweet 16. They were ranked 8th of 8 in the Elite 8. They were ranked 4th of 4 in the Final 4.

It makes it sound like ESPN simply doesn’t believe that Alabama should be winning any of these games.

If we did a decent job of seeding the teams to begin with, the rank ordering shouldn’t change because of a couple games. Can’t we just celebrate the fact that they pulled an upset to get where they are, and enjoy the Cinderella run that the team might be on? We can write one or two articles about how the tournament was seeded and then let the teams show that championships are won on the court and not on paper.

I know that the media needs material to last three weeks. I guess I do a lot of the same things because I like to have blogging material as well. But I still don’t know why I open the article every time and then go, why did I waste my time seeing that they still think that the #1 seeds are still 1 seeds.

Well – only 20 minutes until the games. Time for the Lunatic to rest his fingers for a little bit and possibly lose his voice instead. The Final Four is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Enjoy the games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Lunatic went from down after the first two rounds to up big in his imaginary handicapping. So, the Lunatic is playing with imaginary house money!!!! It is once again a reminder to me that I probably should not try to rank my bets – once I started to simply bet the max amount to catch up, I went on a charge. With only 6 possible bets left to make, I only need to win one of them to have a winning tournament. And of course, if things go badly tonight, I could always simply bet the lowest tier of bets to stay ahead. Probably won’t do that – because that is no fun (and its all imaginary). But still pleased that I ended up ahead this year. My Final Four picks are on the Handicapping site – respect the streaks!!!!

This evening, another chapter will be written for these four teams. For two of them, they might seem like the final chapter, but as we will see, they might turn out to just be the beginning. It is the beauty and the cruelty of March (although I guess at this point, we are now in April).

March 15th, 2024

Virginia’s Isaac McKneely stood on the free throw line with 6 second left. Making the next shot would send the Cavaliers into the ACC championship. Instead, McKneely would miss the free throw and in a frantic rush up the court, the ball ended up in Michael O’Connell’s hands. His three-pointer at the buzzer caused the stadium to erupt as we were heading to overtime. No one would realize the impact of that one shot.

North Carolina State entered the ACC tournament as a team not even considered on the bubble. They had lost 7 of their last 9 games leading into the tournament, and it looked like they were likely going t76-o be hosting an NIT tournament game. They beat Louisville and Syracuse, then they upset Duke, and then when all that was necessary was a free throw to go down, NC State miraculously got the miss that they need and the buzzer beater they needed. They would continue to ride that momentum as they upset North Carolina to claim the ACC tournament championship.

Then, the Wolfpack kept winning. Ben Middlebrooks scored a career high 21 points as they upset Texas Tech. DJ Burns muscled his way to the lane to lead the Wolfpack to a victory over Oakland in overtime. DJ Horne scored 19 points to lead the Wolfpack against 2 seed Marquette. And Burns came back to score a season-high 29 points to lead the Wolfpack to a 76-64 victory over Duke.

The Wolfpack continue to be one of the best stories of the tournament as they refuse to leave the dance. They are going on the type of run that teams dream about – and even better, the run is happening at the best time – in March.

DJ Burns is fun to watch – he looks like he is having so much fun with his infectious smile. He is very good in the post and a tremendous passer if you double team him. DJ Horne is the Wolfpack’s leading scorer – an athletic guard that can quickly get to the basket.

Memories of the historic 1983 Wolfpack run have returned – as that was the last time the Wolfpack made the Final Four. But as much as we like to go back to the past to remember, don’t confuse this team for the 1983 team. This NC State team is writing their own amazing story that is special no matter what history has happened.

According to Vegas, they will be -9.5 underdogs going into the game against Purdue. But that seems to be just fine to the Wolfpack. Underestimate them at your own peril. The Wolfpack are not simply happy to be here – they can win a National Championship if their magical run can last 3 more days.

March 17th, 2023

This day was the end of one story and the beginning of another. Because this is the day that they entered the NCAA Tournament as a 1 seed, and this is the day that they would lose to 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson. In that game, the Boilers shot 5-26 (19.2%) from three-point range as their inability to hit an outside shot ended their season.

In a little bit of a surprise, player-of-the-year Zach Edey decided to come back for his senior season. For some reason, Edey was not believed to be a first-round pick in the draft, and so he decided to come back to the Boilers to try to win a championship.

Purdue doesn’t often use the transfer portal. Matt Painter believes in bringing high schoolers who plan to stay for four years and creating a team that grows together learning to be efficient in a complicated play-book. But the Boilers would recruit one transfer – senior Lance Jones from Southern Illinois. Jones is an athletic guard who plays good defense and added another outside shooter for the team.

Two freshman added additional perimeter strength on their bench as Camden Heide and Myles Colvin are both shooting over 40% from three-point range. Senior Mason Gillis is the Big 10 6th man of the year award winner as he worked on his shot and continues to play aggressive defense.

The Boilers still have Edey – who is now a two-time player of the year award winner. He is truly an unstoppable force as typically, the other team fouls out multiple players simply trying to stop him. They still have Braden Smith, a dynamic point guard who is averaging over 7 assists a game.

But maybe most notably, they are 2nd in the country shooting from three-point range, as their 40.6% puts them only behind Kentucky.

This story has always been a quest for redemption. And they have earned that redemption and more by making it to the first Final Four since 1980 for the Boilermakers. But they have their eyes on one last prize – a national championship.

Jan 24, 2024

On this night in Tuscaloosa, the Alabama Crimson Tide got a chance to play in-state rival Auburn. They had played multiple ranked teams in the non-conference season, but many of them ended in losses. The Tide had been winning games in the SEC, but they did suffer a loss to Tennessee.

Still, they were 5-1 and on their home court. Senior Mark Sears would lead the Tide by scoring 22 points and help get Alabama back in to the rankings discussion, as they returned to the polls as the 24th place team in the country.

With a win against Florida, the Tide would move to 11-2 in the SEC with a game lead over Tennessee. But the Tide would lose 3 of their last 5 to fall into a tie for 2nd place. And after a loss in the SEC tournament quarterfinals to Florida, the doubts began.

No one doubted that Alabama could score. Coach Nate Oats leads a fast-paced style of offense that probably has not met a three-point shot that it doesn’t like. It is a very analytical approach. If I shoot 30 shots and hit 50% (a pretty good percent), I will walk away with 30 points. I only need to shoot 30% from three-point range to match that point total on those 30 shots.

The Tide have 7 players on their team who have shot 99 three-pointers this season. They only hit 36.5% of them, but they shoot a lot of them. And that has led the Tide to score 90.6 points per game – the highest points per game in the country.

But the Tide were also giving up 81.1 points per game (357th in the country). So, if the threes were not falling, their defense would not tend to save them. Many, including the Lunatic, talked about how this lack of defense made them a vulnerable top seed. They might get past the first rounds, but they might be in trouble once they get to the Sweet 16. As many looked for 13 seeds that could pull upsets, Charleston became a popular pick because they would be going against the Alabama defense.

But the Tide took all the negative statements and doubts and used them as fuel. They have been capturing all the quotes from Charles Barkley on TV and AL.com on the internet, and use them as motivation before the games. Grant Nelson scored a season-high 24 points to lead the Tide past 1 seed North Carolina. And then Mark Sears hit seven three-pointers against Clemson to lead the Tide to their first Final Four in school history.

The Tide enters the game tonight as a 11.5 point underdog to the Huskies. That might seem like an insult and that no one expects the Tide to compete in this game, but when you realize that the Huskies have gone 10 games in the last two tournaments winning by double digits, you realize that this is basically saying that people think Alabama has a better chance of keeping it close than most teams.

But the honest truth is that Alabama is unlike any team that Connecticut has played against. Almost any one on the court will shoot the ball from three, forcing you to extend your defense to an uncomfortable level and opening up the opportunity for their talented guards like Mark Sears and Aaron Estrada to drive to the lane.

The odds might be against Alabama, but the Tide seem to thrive on that doubt. And if they can knock down their three-pointers, they can beat any team in the country. They certainly can win two more games to win the National Championship

Jan 17, 2024

It is a little surprising, but according to the ESPN story that I am looking at, this date was the first time in 15 years the Connecticut Huskies were ranking #1 in the polls. The Huskies had certainly finished the season #1, but they typically didn’t start there.

This year was similar, the Huskies started off their title defense in 6th in the polls. They had a good non-conference season where they beat UNC, Texas and Gonzaga. Then, they kept winning while the other top teams lost, waiting for their chance to hold the top of the rankings.

The Huskies won against ranked Creighton 62-48 with their trademark defense and a balanced offense. The Huskies would hold on to the top spot for 6 weeks until they got upset by Creighton on February 20th. That would be the last time the Huskies have lost this season. By being the only major conference champion to defend their regular season title with a conference tournament title, they claimed the NCAA tournament #1 seed and the final poll top spot.

Connecticut is so balanced as they have 5 players averaging double digits in points. They play a very slow-paced half-court offense that makes you work for the entire shot clock. But they then create tons of fast-break baskets from their suffocating defense.

It all starts in the paint with 7’2″ Donovan Clingan – if anyone tries to get into the paint, Clingan shuts them down. Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer and Stephon Castle give the Huskies three guards who can play tremendous defense and can score. Alex Karaban gives the Huskies a forward who can also shoot from the outside.

There has been no defending champion who has repeated to win the title since Florida in 2007. But in this March, this Huskies team appears to be ready to join them. They beat Stetson by 39, Northwestern by 17 (although they were up at one point by 30), San Diego State by 30, and Illinois by 25.

The Illinois game showed the problem when facing the Connecticut Huskies. With about 2 minutes in the game, Illinois was hanging around with the Huskies as the game was tied at 23. Then, the Huskies went on a 30-0 run. That is correct, Illinois went slightly over 9 minutes without scoring a point. If you look at KenPom statistics, Illinois ranked 4th in the country in offensive efficiency. And the Huskies defense shut them down for no points for 9 entire minutes.

The Huskies are currently the defending champions and the #1 team in the regular season. To be the best, you have to beat the best. And I guarantee you that you will have to be at your best in order to beat the Huskies. Will the favorite be able to win the two final games to claim back-to-back championships.

April 6, 2024

These 4 great teams are in Glendale, Arizona to try to add two more victories to their stories. Less than 1 hour away from tip-off. So get ready to cheer!!! Get ready to watch some great basketball!!! Get ready for more stories to be written!!! Enjoy the games!!!