Stomp The Lunatic

Well, I spent a bunch of time last night trying to create a clearer table of conference’s and what teams and still in the running – but it is still a lot of info. Quickly – here is the viewing guide (with no commentary since I have lots to do.

There are 5 bids being awarded tonight – the one that people are probably excited for is the WCC powerhouses in Las Vegas – but all 5 have the conference regular season champs hoping for one more win to secure their ticket to the dance

9 pm on ESPN – WCC – regular season champ #21 St. Mary’s (25-7) vs #17 Gonzaga (25-6)

7 pm on CBSSN – Coastal – regular season champ Charleston (26-7) vs Stony Brook (20-14)

7 pm on ESPN – Horizon – regular season champ Oakland (22-11) vs Milwaukee (20-14)

7 pm on ESPN2 – NEC – regular season champ Merrimack (21-11) vs Wagner (15-15)

9:30 pm on CBSSN – Summit – regular season champ South Dakota St (21-12) vs Denver (17-16)

As for other regular season conference champions in action, the two of most interest are McNeese St (28-3) playing Lamar (19-13) in the 6:30 pm Southland semi-final and Vermont (26-6) playing New Hampshire (16-14) in the 5 pm America East semi-final.

The Big 12, ACC and Atlantic 10 also start their tournaments today – if you are watching the bubble, the one to watch is at 3 pm in the Big 12. NET ranking 41 Cincinnati (18-13) opens their tournament against West Virginia (9-22). While the Big 12 is brutal and it might be too much for the committee to send 11 teams, the Bearcats don’t want to make that decision easier by losing to the Mountaineers.

If you are following long shots, NC State (17-14) starts their desperation run today against Louisville (8-23). I am not sure that I see a scenario outside of winning 5 ACC Tournament games that gets the Wolfpack into the dance, but if they make it to the Friday semi-finals, it will include victories against Syracuse tomorrow and Duke on Thursday – who knows if that will vault them into the bubble discussions.

Enjoy the games!

Congratulations to James Madison and Samford, as they won their conference tournaments. And the Selection Committee thanks the Dukes and Bulldogs, since they do not need to consider leaving out a team that has won 30 or 28 games. Both teams managed to win one more – and make the debate a seeding debate instead of a selection debate.

And as I realize it is almost 10 pm, I start to realize the potential for significant late evenings. The Lunatic is getting old – not sure sleep deprivation is a good idea. Need to consider if I create my conference board to be used for bracketology – or try to get some sleep before the tournament comes.

Oh look – St. Mary’s is only up 7 at halftime against Santa Clara. Maybe I can watch one more half of basketball…..

This was fun last year – so I will try to do again. Not sure I will update every day this week between taking Katie to rugby practices and figuring out my own bracketology.

Today and tomorrow are important days for the mid-major tournaments. Most of the major conference bubble teams don’t start playing until Wednesday or Thursday, so it is an opportunity for the conference championships to take the stage.

Two more teams will punch their ticket to the dance – both playing on the ESPN channels at 7pm EST. In the Sun Belt, 2nd seeded James Madison (30-3) will take on the Arkansas State (18-15) team that shockingly took out Appalachian State on a wild and well defended buzzer beater on Sunday. Both the bubble teams and JMU fans will be rooting for the favorite – it is unclear that the committee would leave out a 30 win team, but with the only win on that resume against a possible tournament team being their opener at Michigan State, it would be great for everyone if they simply take the Sun Belt’s auto-bid. It should be a good game as these teams played to a 4 pt game in the season – and Arkansas State is playing their best basketball of the season at the right time.

In the Southern, regular season champion Samford (28-5) takes on East Tennessee State (19-15). Samford swept the regular season with a close 3 point win at ETSU and a 16 point win at home, so they will need to win one more time to go dancing. ETSU has already upset the 2 seed (UNC-Greensboro) and an exciting overtime victory over the 3 seed (Chattanooga) so it should also be a great game.

After that, the West Coast conference has their semi-finals starting at 9 pm – as their top 4 teams will fight it out. This is always a great night (especially if you are a nightowl and can stay up until 1:30-2 am). Don’t think the new polls are out yet – but #23 St Mary’s plays first against Santa Clara, and #19 Gonzaga plays San Francisco. While basketball fans are probably hoping for a rematch in Las Vegas between Gonzaga and St. Mary’s, the bubble is desperately hoping that San Francisco or Santa Clara don’t become bid-stealers over the next two evenings.

The regular season champions from the Coastal (Charleston), Horizon (Oakland) and Summit (South Dakota State) conferences also play in their semi-finals tonight as they look to keep their dreams of going to the dance alive – so lots of good basketball tonight!! And a chance to maybe check out a team that possibly will be in that 12-14 range which always provide the fun upsets that make March special (if you are looking for that, definitely check out JMU, Samford, and Charleston).

Enjoy the games!!!!

In the Big South, fifth seeded Longwood (21-13) managed to make their 2nd NCAA Tournament in the last three years. They upset regular season champion High Point on Saturday in the semi-finals. And they rode that momentum to jump out to a 31-14 lead in the first half over 2 seed UNC-Asheville and never looked back on their way to win the Big South Conference Tournament Championship.

In the Missouri Valley, regular season champion Indiana State (28-6) will have a long week ahead of them. They had an emotional roller coaster today as they fell behind 67-49 with 10 minutes to play, came charging back to take the lead 76-74 with 3 1/2 minutes, and then watched as Drake went on a 10-4 run to finish and claim the MVC championship. So, Drake (28-6) will be celebrating back to back MVC Tournament titles, and Indiana State will have to hope that their NET ranking of 26 is enough to get them an at-large bid.

Finally, in the Atlantic Sun, 2nd seeded Stetson (22-12) beat 4th seeded Austin Peay in an exciting finish to win 94-91. The Hatters’ Jalen Blackmon drove to the basket, made the layup and drew a foul with 71 seconds left to break a tie game. Stetson hit their free throws to lock up the game, and win the Atlantic Sun conference tournament. This was definitely a special moment as it will be the first time in school history that Stetson will head to the NCAA Tournament, and you could tell the students were excited as they flooded onto the court to celebrate with their team.

Congratulations to Longwood, Drake and Stetson – who will join Morehead State in the dance.

The Conference Tournaments are here. And while many of us were watching North Carolina wrap up the ACC by beating their rivals on their home court, or were watching Connecticut survive a slow start to win on the road at Providence, one of the most critical games of the night was being playing in Evansville, Indiana.

This is where the Ohio Valley Conference hosted their conference tournament, and in the championship game regular season co-champs Morehead State faced #1 seed and co-champs Arkansas-Little Rock. In the regular season, Little Rock beat the Eagles in the final seconds, helping them claim the top seed in the OVC tournament.

But tonight, it was a different story. The Eagles jumped out to a 21-4 lead to start the game, allowed Little Rock to come all the way back to take an early second half lead at 36-35, and then took the game over – cruising to a 69-55 victory. Riley Minix led the Eagles with 26 points and Drew Thelwell added 21 on their way to the OVC tournament title.

That victory gives Morehead State a very precious prize – the Eagles have become the first team to earn their automatic bid into this year’s NCAA Championship.

It has kind of been a wild day – as one might expect in March. The top two teams in the Missouri Valley won their semi-finals to set up Sunday’s championship between Indiana State (28-5) and Drake (27-6). The top seed in the Sun Belt, Appalachian State (27-5) survived their quarterfinal in overtime while James Madison (29-3) also advanced to keep the dream matchup in the Sun Belt alive.

Things did not go so well for Richmond and South Florida – two teams who surprised everyone by locking up the 1 seed in their conferences to enter the bubble picture. But they both took surprising losses on Saturday, meaning that they will likely have to win their conference tournaments to advance. At least, they still have their conference tournaments ahead. High Point, the regular season champion of the Big South, got upset in overtime against Longwood in the Big South semi-finals.

And that doesn’t even cover all the big games in the major conferences. But they will get enough press throughout the upcoming weeks. Tonight belongs to the Morehead State Eagles, the Ohio Valley Conference Champions. And three more teams will earn their ticket to the dance on Sunday as the Missouri Valley, Big South and Atlantic Sun will crown their champions.

IT MUST BE MARCH!!!!!

And we sadly already have our first casualty of March. Not a lot of people are going to realize that 17-14 Eastern Kentucky was the Atlantic Sun regular season champion. After a rough non-conference that included trouncings by the likes of Alabama and Purdue, the Colonels bounced back strong to go 12-4 in the Atlantic Sun, claiming the regular season title by a game over Stetson and Lipscomb.

But in the cruel world of March Madness that ended when they lost in the final seconds of the Atlantic Sun quarterfinals to Jacksonville 67-65. And just to show that March can be cruel to everyone, Lipscomb found themselves in the same situation the same evening as their season ended with a 77-75 loss to North Alabama.

It is the world of the mid-major conference. You might get a regular season banner to put up, but if you want to play in the NCAA Tournament, you must win your last 3 games – and at the end of the day, we all know since there are 32 conferences, only 32 teams are going to succeed with that challenge. If you are in the Big 10 like Purdue and get upset in the tournament, you know you have a second chance – they don’t need the automatic bid. But for many of the conferences, this is their one and only shot.

And every year, several of those conference champions end up with the NIT as their consolation – this year, Eastern Kentucky is the first and they likely won’t be the last. March can be cruel. But for every team that has heartbreak, there is a team that is excited their season is continuing. It is a huge roller coaster of emotions.

The Madness is here – embrace the chaos!

So happy that Purdue came back from being down at halftime on the road at #12 Illinois to win 77-71 and claim the outright Big 10 title.

It is the first time since 2006 and 2007 that a Big 10 team won back-to-back outright Big 10 championships. BOILER UP!!!!!

I guess I now need to get back to figuring out if I will do a crazy bracketology based on statistics and models – or do my standard pick teams crazily in the last couple of days (or a combination of both). But it was a nice diversion from my craziness to enjoy watching the Boilers win the Big 10!

As March has begun, it is time to make some statements about the mid-major teams on the bubble. Lets face it, the world is broken into the 6 major conferences (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac 12 and SEC) and the rest. If you aren’t in those 6, there are many names that get thrown around, small conference, mid-major conference, one-bid conference. They are one of the things that make March great – when they pull off one of those double-digit seed upsets that make the world notice them – even if it is for a single weekend.

This is a plea for the selection committee to look deeper into these teams. Because inevitably, a couple of these teams that have dominated all season are going to lose in their conference tournament (and as the name one-bid conference suggests), will likely be sent to the NIT.

There are two conferences in particular that have my eye – the Missouri Valley, where Indiana State (25-5) and Drake (24-6) are two excellent teams with only a few blemishes on the season. And then, there is the Sun Belt where James Madison (28-3) finds themselves one game behind in the standings to Appalachian State (26-5).

Many will say the following: Sure – James Madison beat Michigan State in East Lansing in overtime but would they be 28-3 if they played a major conference schedule – after all, they did get swept by Appalachian State and lost at Southern Miss. Sure- Appalachian State managed to beat Auburn at home in December. But they also lost to teams like Troy and Texas State. Could they have survived a guantlet like the SEC and have that type of record.

The answer is not as clear as it should be. The truth is, they probably would have lost some more games – but how many is hard to determine. But I will throw this out there for the committee to think about.

The Big 12 has an example that might be worth looking at. The Big 12 welcomed new members to the league – two of them of interest for this conversation (Houston and BYU).

Houston was won of those examples last year as they won the American for 4 of its last 5 seasons, and now was finally going to get a chance in the majors. And if you believed the pre-season predictions, CBS had the Cougars only behind Kansas. And lets face it – Kansas has won the Big 12 in something like 14 of the last 15 seasons, so who would blame the experts for sticking with the champions.

As for BYU, they came from the West Coast Conference where they competed against Gonzaga and St. Mary’s. CBS didn’t have as high opinions here – as they predicted BYU would finish 11th in the conference.

With one week in the regular season, if Houston can win one of their last two games (at UCF and home vs Kansas), they will clinch a share of the Big 12 title. At 26-3, they are the #1 team in the polls, and for good reason. No one is questioning whether they deserve a spot in the dance – they are questioning on whether the committee will give them the national #1 seed. We all know this conversation would be much different if they were still in the American.

But how about BYU – they are 21-8 and 9-7 in the conference, and considered a lock to be in the tournament. They are in a tie for 4th place with the Kansas team predicted to win the whole conference and Texas Tech. I guarantee you – if they had gone 11-5 in the West Coast Conference because they lost their games to Gonzaga and St. Mary’s and then stumbled again on the road (lets say like 22-9 San Francisco did this season), they would be barely on the conversation of the bubble – certainly not a lock.

This is the proof that the committee needs to start to take a look at. If a team like James Madison goes 28-3 and beats Michigan State, and a team like Appalachian State goes 26-5 and beats Auburn (and then sweeps James Madison), they are good teams. Why is it that if we believe that they would lose a few more road games if they played in Big 10 or SEC, they should not get the same consideration. We already know both of those teams are 1-0 against those conferences. Why is it hard to believe that a 28-3 James Madison could finish 21-10 in the Big 10 – if they could beat Michigan State on the road, they probably could hold their home court against the likes of Michigan and Penn State. And then, they would have a profile that looks like (or better than) Michigan State (who is considered safely in the tournament). And yet, if Appalachian State beats them again in the conference tournament, they will have to hope that the NIT decides to take them.

There is great basketball being played outside the major 6 conferences. And as Houston and BYU have shown us, sometimes all these “one-bid conference” teams need is simply a chance to play to prove they belong. I would rather see a 30-4 team play in the tournament than an 18-14 team – even if the 30-4 team won those games in the Sun Belt.

I won’t likely get that option – Appalachian State and James Madison can’t both win the Sun Belt. Someone will be on the outside left out of the dance. Unless the committee sees this plea and reconsiders some past beliefs that are maybe not as a true as we think. And if that happens, they should send a thank you card to Houston and BYU for giving a little more proof – the question shouldn’t be would they lose a few more games. The question is would they win enough – and for Houston and BYU, that answer was yes.

One of the advantages to my loyal statisticians is that with the need to completely renew my website is that I am ahead of schedule on pulling box scores. If you click on the research link, our traditional Excel spreadsheet with 2024 game data is there. I will continue to update it throughout March – although maybe not every day. Can’t start my sleep deprivation too early.

The typical disclaimer is there. My process has some basic quality checks to match records to what the NCAA releases on their NET rankings page. The research page also gives you a link to the NCAA Statistics site – where I get the box scores (but they have more data including play-by-play data that I wished I had time to pull and scrub).

For those of you wondering why I do this insane data collection, it is so that people can build models with it. Each year, we get several people who have demonstrated the power of statistics by building models in order to predict the games – some with tons of success. Bill Kahn had been near the top of the standings multiple years by building Bradley-Terry models. And our 2006 champion David Shaddick won by using a model he created with this data for a stats training course at work for analysts. At the end of the day, while strange things can happen in the tournament, good statistical techniques can be used to do a great job of forecasting the games.

If you are looking for a fun way to learn statistics (or want to show off you statistical expertise by building the best model), the data is there for you to enjoy – you might be the next winner of the pool thanks to your efforts.

If you notice any issues with the data, please let me know! Enjoy the data!!!

2023 was a little bit rough for the Lunatic website. We all know how big of a Purdue fan that he is, so watching his Boilers lose in the first round as a 1 seed was devastating. But that was just foreshadowing. In November, as I started to enjoy the new season of college basketball, I thought I would write an early blog. To my horror, all my WordPress sites were corrupted. I couldn’t even log into them to figure out what went wrong.

But when things go wrong, you have to use it as an opportunity to move forward. You will notice a different look to the website this year. I updated WordPress to the newest version, and that brought a newer theme and look. I am still struggling with editing the blocks and format, but I was lucky enough to be able to login to the databases and copy and paste a lot of the historical blogs into the new site.

At this point, the most important part of the website is restored – the pages that you use to register for the pool and enter your picks. And so while there is still time before March, why wait. 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. And so, I am happy to announce the 2024 Stomp the Lunatic tournament!

I still have a ton of work to do – and not sure that all of it will get done in time. You will notice some differences in the layout of the site. Because of the new WordPress theme, I am going to try to create a navigational bar at the top of the pages to help move throughout the site, whether it be to register for this year’s tournament, enter your picks, check your place in the standings, or enjoy the sleep-deprived rantings of the Lunatic.

On the standings pages, I have created a drop-down menu that allows you to view previous standings through 2008 (the first year I ran the pool on the current website). I have also created a Hall of Fame site that has a listing of past winners and links to the older standings pages.

I am thinking about how to revamp the Bracketology, Handicapping and Statistics pages. Because of the troubles I had with WordPress, I am going to re-design these to be more standalone webpages. They might not be fully restored this year (at a certain point, we need to focus on the current tournament vs. restoring the site), but hopefully, I will be able to figure out a way to continue to stroll down memory lane. Not to mention that it wouldn’t be March without the Lunatic trying to predict what teams will be playing in the tournament and then handicapping all 67 games.

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 17th will be here before we know it. 

But have no fears – while the Lunatic might not be able to restore everything that he wants with the website, we are still 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). And I have managed to pull all the box scores through Thursday’s games. And I am super excited to watch as the regular season championships get decided over the next 1-2 weeks and the conference tournaments begin. I am sure there will be lots more drama as teams fight to earn the opportunity to play in the NCAA Championship. We will all need to get ready – because it is time to watch an amazing month of college basketball. And of course, it is time to Stomp the Lunatic!!!