Stomp The Lunatic

So, I have read on multiple media pages, and heard through social media that everyone believes that NIL is going to kill Cinderella, and eventually kill March Madness. And in a tournament that saw absolutely no upsets, I can see why people are starting to put up the panic button.

There are some fairly good points that I have seen made. First of all, there is the fact that only 4 conferences put a team in the Sweet 16. But to be fair, it is normal that the power conferences are who is left after the first weekend. And while the Big East getting eliminated early reduced the number of power conferences, it is important to also remember that there used to be an extra power conference before the Pac 12 was destroyed.

The second reason that I hear is that with all the major money that is out there for NIL, the smaller schools simply have no chance at getting the talent they need to make a run. And to a certain extent, this is true. The transfer portal has made it easier for a star player at a non-power conference school to average 20 PPG, transfer at the end of the year, and play at a power conference school next season. I think there is some truth in this argument. But here is the problem with the argument. Cooper Flagg was going to play somewhere this year. Whether NIL existed or not, he certainly wasn’t going to be choosing Appalachian State as the school he would lead. He was always going to be going to a school like Duke. Schools like Duke, Kansas, and Kentucky have always been able to get the best recruits – and no one was ready to claim the death of the non-power conferences because of it. Money being available to the players certainly doesn’t change this to a level that would end Cinderella from coming to the party.

The third reason is simply the fact that no non-power conference team made it. Well – I can’t argue with that since none of them did. But I am not sure that is an isolated incident.

But lets take a look back at history to see if this is real. Before we make our trip down memory lane, lets talk about who qualifies. For me, Cinderella is a non-power conference school that was an 11-16 seed.

There are two teams I will not count. First, we will not include the power conference teams that get seeded from 11-16. NC State was a great story last year when they made their run as an 11 seed. But it defeats the argument that NIL is ending Cinderella and use a power conference school that probably has plenty of NIL resources to prove the point. I am also not going to include the non-power conference teams that are ranked 1-10. As much as I like schools like VCU and Gonzaga, it is hard to call a 5 seed like Memphis this year a Cinderella team. So, lets see how deep we can go before the Lunatic needs to get some sleep.

2024 – 13 seed Yale lost in 2nd round to San Diego St, 11 seed Duquesne lost in 2nd round to Illinois, 12 seed Grand Canyon lost in 2nd round to Alabama, 12 seed James Madison lost in 2nd round to Duke, 14 seed Oakland lost in 2nd round to NC State – Cinderella went 0-5 in 2nd round.

2023 – 13 seed Furman lost in 2nd round to San Diego St, 15 seed Princeton beat Missouri before losing in Sweet 16 to Creighton, 16 seed FDU lost to Florida Atlantic – Cinderella went 1-2 in the 2nd round.

2022 – 12 seed New Mexico State lost to Arkansas in 2nd round, 15 seed St. Peter’s beat Murray State (and Purdue before losing to UNC in the Elite 8), 12 seed Richmond lost to Providence in 2nd round – Cinderella went 1-2 in the 2nd round.

2021 – 13 seed Ohio lost to Creighton, 14 seed Abilene Christian lost to UCLA, 13 seed North Texas lost to Villanova, 15 seed Oral Roberts beat Florida before losing to Arkansas – Cinderella went 1-3 in the 2nd round.

2019 – 12 seed Liberty lost to Virginia Tech, 12 seed Murray State lost to Florida State, 13 seed UC-Irvine lost to Oregon – Cinderella went 0-3.

2018 – 16 seed UMBC lost to Kansas State, 13 seed Buffalo lost to Kentucky, 11 seed Loyola-Chicago beat Tennessee (and went to the Final 4), 13 seed Marshall lost to West Virginia – Cinderella went 1-3 (but then went on to the Final 4)

2017 – 11 seed Rhode Island lost to Oregon, 12 seed Middle Tennessee lost to Butler – Cinderella went 0-2.

2016 – 13 seed Hawaii lost to Maryland, 11 seed Wichita State lost to Miami, 12 seed Yale lost to Duke, 11 seed Northern Iowa lost to Texas A&M, 14 seed Stephen F Austin lost to Notre Dame, 12 seed Little Rock lost to Iowa State, 11 seed Gonzaga beat Utah before losing to Syracuse, 15 seed Middle Tennessee lost to Syracuse – Cinderella went 1-7.

2015 – 14 seed Georgia State lost to Xavier, 11 seed Dayton lost to Oklahoma, 14 seed UAB lost to UCLA – Cinderella went 0-3

2014 – 12 seed Stephen F Austin lost to UCLA, 11 seed Dayton beat Syracuse and Stanford before losing in the Elite 8 to Florida, 12 seed Harvard lost to Michigan State, 12 seed North Dakota State lost to San Diego State – Cinderella went 1-3.

2013 – 13 seed LaSalle beat Ole Miss before losing to Wichita State, 14 seed Harvard lost to Arizona, 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast beat San Diego State before losing to Florida – Cinderella went 2-1

2012 – 12 seed VCU lost to Indiana, 15 seed Lehigh lost to Xavier, 15 seed Norfolk State lost to Florida, 13 seed Ohio beat 12 seed South Alabama before losing to UNC – Cinderella went 1-4 (and had to win that game since they played each other).

2011 – 12 seed Richmond beat 13 seed Morehead State (before losing to Kansas). 11 seed VCU beat Purdue on the way to the Final 4. 11 seed Gonzaga lost to BYU – Cinderella went 2-2 (and made it to the Final 4)

2010 – 14 seed Ohio lost to Tennessee, 13 seed Murray State lost to Butler, 12 seed Cornell beat Wisconsin before losing to Kentucky, 11 seed Old Dominion lost to Baylor – Cinderella went 1-3

2009 – 13 seed Cleveland State lost to Arizona, 11 seed Dayton lost to Kansas, 12 seed Western Kentucky lost to Gonzaga – Cinderella went 0-3.

2008 – 13 seed Siena lost to Villanova, 12 seed Western Kentucky beat 13 seed San Diego before losing to UCLA – Cinderella went 1-2.

2007 – 11 seed Winthrop lost to Oregon, 11 seed VCU lost to Pitt – Cinderella went 0-2.

2006 – 14 seed Northwestern State lost to West Virginia, 13 seed Bradley beat Pitt before losing to Memphis, 12 seed Montana lost to Boston College, 11 seed UW-Milwaukee lost to Florida, 11 seed George Mason beat North Carolina (on the way to the Final 4) – Cinderella went 2-3.

So, if I added things up correctly, Cinderella went 15-53 in the 2nd round, and were held out of the Sweet 16 in 6 of the last 18 years. Should also mention that 9 of the last 18 years only had 3 teams make it to the Round of 32.

In 2025, we had Colorado State, McNeese and Drake make it to the Round of 32 and all lose. We can’t say that not enough teams made it – since in half of the last 18 years, we only saw 2-3 teams make it.

If we believe the record over the last 18 years is a fair probability estimate, each Cinderella has a 22% chance of winning. Which if I remember my statistics correctly means that there was a 47.4% chance none of them made it to the Sweet 16.

Was it a little bit sad that no Cinderella’s made the Sweet 16 – absolutely……But we also didn’t see any in 2007 or 2009 when NIL clearly didn’t exist – and no one was talking about the demise of March Madness.

Do I think that NIL is broken – yes!!! I would like to see more guardrails in place. I don’t like the idea that one school can offer $8 million when another can hardly offer $1 million simply because they have rich donors.

Do I think that the transfer portal is broken – yes!!! Why are we opening up the transfer portal during the middle of the NCAA Tournament? Is there any realistic reason that we can’t wait until the tournament is over? There are going to be players who are signed after Monday – we could certainly have waited a week or two to give everyone the same opportunity to be recruited. We can say that they need to be registered by May 1st when a lot of high schoolers are accepting their offers – but this is a business. You can’t tell me that the school can’t figure out how to find room at the university for 2-3 more students. These are special circumstances that they can set up whatever rules they want.

Even if you look at the Final 4, while you can be concerned that the top 4 teams are all the favorites. But can we really be upset to see the ACC, Big 12 and SEC regular season champion and tournament champion play to decide who wins the national title. These were the best 4 teams all season, and they managed to show that by winning 4 games in March.

Cinderella might have left the dance this year before midnight. But before we think that Cinderella isn’t coming back to the dance, we might want to give her a chance for a few more years.

Charlie’s rules for 21 might have thrown me for a loop, but it wouldn’t have mattered the way that I played.

The part of the game I thought would be the only way Duke stays in the game turned out to be their downfall. The Blue Devils could not hit a free throw to save their lives. Meanwhile, Auburn hit all their free throws, so every time they scored, the Tigers extended their lead.

The fading light certainly didn’t help Duke as they struggled to get rebounds when the ball went off the rim. Or it could be that I am just not used to shooting while trying to dribble to a spot. I always was the type of set shooter that would fire off a pass instead of driving to the basket.

But it was a thorough beating – Charlie shot better from three-point range. Charlie shot better from the line. Charlie was just better. Auburn 21, Duke 14.

Congratulations to Auburn on winning the Ball Don’t Lie championship.

We are down to the end of the season. The Final Four is almost here!!!!!

And what an amazing Final Four we have!!!! This is a women’s focused post – so we will congratulate these great women’s teams.

Before we get to the main event, lets recognize the NIT finalists – Buffalo (29-7) will play Troy (24-13) on CBS Sports Network on Saturday at 5 pm.

On Friday night, the women’s Final Four kicks off in Tampa, FL. In the 7 pm game, we have the two SEC regular-season co-champions play a fourth time to see who gets to play for the championship as South Carolina (35-3) plays Texas (35-3). In the regular season, each team won the game played on their home court, but South Carolina claimed the third game at the SEC conference tournament championship.

In the 9 pm game, we have the Big 10 tournament champion UCLA (34-2) against the Big East regular-season/tournament champion Connecticut (35-3) as Paige Bueckers tries to end her amazing college career with a championship.

These four women’s teams have been dominating all season. It is impressive that these four teams have only lost 11 times all season, but it might be even more impressive of the only teams that beat them.

South Carolina’s only losses were to UCLA, Texas and Connecticut – the other 3 Final Four teams (that doesn’t necessarily make them the underdog – remember they beat Texas twice and the UCLA game was in Los Angeles.

Texas only losses were the two games to Texas and an overtime loss at 3 seed Notre Dame in South Bend.

UCLA has only lost to one team this year – the last 1 seed USC – the Trojans swept the regular season against the Bruins before getting beat by UCLA in the Big 10 tournament.

Connecticut went undefeated in the Big East and so their only losses were during their brutal non-conference schedule to 1 seed USC by 2 points, 3 seed Notre Dame (at ND) and 5 seed Tennessee (at Tennessee).

Think about that for a second – the only teams that beat the Final Four teams were each other, USC (who might be in this list if JuJu Watkins had not gotten hurt), and road games against two Sweet 16 teams in Notre Dame and Tennessee. Total dominance!!!!

It should be a fantastic Final Four leading to a well-deserving champion!!!

I also need to do a special call-out to Geno Auriemma and the Connecticut Huskies. I have always known how dominating the Huskies were but it never occurred to me until I heard this piece of information.

Geno Auriemma has now coached the Huskies to 16 of the last 17 Final Fours. That means he has now coached in 24 Final Fours, and has managed to finish those final weekends with 11 national championships. What the UConn Huskies have achieved is so incredible – it is an amazing accomplishment to make a Final Four, to do it every year for basically 17 years is legendary.

Good luck to all of these four great teams on Friday night!!!

As always, the only official standings are the main standings links – those are the only ones that I truly validate are scoring correctly. But it is still an exciting time to be able to take a look at the scenarios and see which outcome gives you the best place in the pool!!! Just click on the scenarios link at the top of the blog and then check out the different options.

If I have done everything correctly, here are the people who will win based on the 8 possible final championship outcomes.

A couple interesting facts (unofficially, of course)

A definite congratulations needs to go out to Ashley Peterson – the worst that she can end up with is tied for 1st in the Upset Pool.

5 of the 8 outcomes will either tie or beat the highest ever total in the Stomp the Lunatic Standard Pool.

7 of the 8 outcomes will beat the highest ever total in the Second Chance Pool.

4 of the 8 outcomes will create the first ever perfect second chance bracket where the winner will have picked all 15 games correctly.

Here is the list of all the potential winners (unofficially, of course).

	STANDARD	UPSET	SECOND CHANCE
Auburn beats Duke	Andrea Zimmerman (1550)	Ashley Peterson (270)	Rosemary McKnight (1000)
Auburn beats Houston	Rosemary McKnight (1480)	Ashley Peterson (275)	Ashley Peterson (1000)
Florida beats Duke	Earl McKnight (1520)	Ashley Peterson (270)	Martin Poteralski, Jess Klecak and Ryan Zotti (1040)
Florida beats Houston	Lowell Isaacs (1510)	Ashley Peterson (275)	Amy Lacks (1000)
Duke beats Auburn	Paul Hamer (1490)	Ashley Peterson (270)	Mikayla Cole, Laurie Nietzke and Rusty Ahles (1040)
Duke beats Florida	Debbe Evans (1570)	Ashley Peterson and Debbe Evans (270)	Joseph Laucius, Earl McKnight and Andrea Zimmerman (1040)
Houston beats Auburn	Michael Cheung (1480)	Ashley Peterson (281)	Michael Cheung (1040)
Houston beats Florida	Andrea Zimmerman (1550)	Ashley Peterson (281)	Michael Cheung (920)

It looks like the Lunatic is going to get stomped – it is just a question of how many of you. Good luck to everyone in Stomping the Lunatic!!!

Between work, soccer practice and other fun things that Charlie has planned for Spring Break, I don’t know that we have enough time to do the women’s tournament like we have done in the past. But we felt that we needed to try to at least get the men’s version in.

Since we all know that Ball Don’t Lie, Charlie and I decided to let the ball decide who we think will win. The Final Four version is done through HORSE. And whether it was foolish or not, since my picks had Florida and Duke, I represented the Gators and Blue Devils.

In the first game, Auburn blew out the Gators. Charlie just did not miss. I am not kidding – Charlie made his first 9 shots, and somehow, after going 5 of 9, I found myself at S to nothing. Charlie continued to hit shots, and thanks to the need to finish things off with 2 misses, I somehow lasted another 9-10 shots. Charlie just kept making shots – I think he only missed twice. I can’t even remember how he finished me off – probably a long three-pointer. All I know was it is the first time in a long time that I have been swept at HORSE. So, Auburn will win as they shoot lights out.

In the second game, I got to start things off and I even drew the first letter. Thankfully for me, Charlie finally started missing some shots. However, I couldn’t really build the lead – we claimed it was because of Houston’s great defense. It also started to get super dark. Houston was up S to R as the Duke coach (the Lunatic) started talking about the fact that he can’t even see the rim. Then, the turning point happened. The Houston coach (Charlie) said we might have to do something really crazy to finish this.

He asked if he could do something complicated like stand next to the basket and make 10 layups in a row. I said sure. So, he started and made 3 before the ball hit the front of the rim. Seeing an opening, I said well lets try 5. The Lunatic made it and Charlie once again hit the front of the rim. And suddenly, Duke and Houston were tied at S – we are heading to our version of overtime.

I said, since we are doing crazy stuff – you have to shoot from about 10 feet out and make the shot off the board, grab the ball, head to the other side, and make the shot off the board. Charlie was annoyed as I made both shots. Charlie made the first shot but missed the second one. But we have two tries. On the second try, he made the first shot, and as he tried to grab the ball and go to the other spot, his flip flop slipped and he fell to the ground. He said he was alright, picked himself up, and missed the shot. Feeling bad that I created a shot that caused him to slip, I gave him another chance. And this time, the Houston Cougars made the shot without falling.

As a concerned dad who has horrible anxiety, I asked him again if he was OK. And he said he was fine. I then decided to go back to a more traditional shot. I went to the top of key and hit the three-pointer. Charlie missed both of them, and Duke escaped with the victory. We decided that this meant it was a close defensive game, but LJ Cryer hurts himself late in the game and Duke was able to take advantage to win the close battle.

It was too dark to play the final, so not sure when we will be able to get that. But Charlie suggested that we play a true game of 1-on-1 to decide the final. We might make it 21 to give me some chance – lets remember Charlie is 7 inches taller than me (and of course, significantly younger and in better shape). I might still know how to hit a set shot from three – but in HORSE, no one is guarding you.

So, Auburn will definitely be the favorite in the Ball Don’t Lie version against Duke. Will the Lunatic be able to rely on his wisdom and knowledge of the game, or will Charlie’s brute strength take the title. Only time will tell – assuming we can get it in our busy schedule this week.

With four number one seeds making it to the Final Four, it has led to a very crowded leaderboard for the Stomp the Lunatic contest. I am not sure if this is a first, but we had 47 entries pick all 4 Final Four teams. I suspect that could lead to a very exciting finish to the pool. But for now, lets congratulate those who are in the best spot with only 3 NCAA tournament games remaining in the college basketball season.

In the Standard Pool, Debbe Evans continues to hold onto the lead with 1170 points. She has a 20 point lead over both of Andrea Zimmerman’s entries. Ryan Zotti is all alone in 4th at 1130 points, with both of Earl McKnight’s entries tied in 5th at 1120 points. Lowell Isaacs is in 7th place at 1110 points. And rounding out the top 10 is a four-way tie for 8th place between Joseph Laucius, Paul Hamer, Shane Mortenson and Don Berglund.

In the Upset Pool, Ashley Peterson continues to hold onto the lead with 270 points. Debbe Evans is in 2nd place with 254 points. In 3rd place is Scott Grimes with 250 points. Jerry Caldwell is in 4th place at 233 points, and both of Andrea Zimmerman’s entries are tied for 5th at 230 points.

In the Second Chance Pool, we still have 10 perfect brackets. Congratulations to our leaders, Michael Cheung, Jess Klecak, Laurie Neitzke, Ryan Zotti, Joseph Laucius, Mikayla Cole, Rusty Ahles, Earl McKnight, Andrea Zimmerman, and Martin Poteralski.

The favorites winning was very rough for the Lunatic’s picks, as he had Tennessee and Michigan State – after he foolishly made changes to his picks because he had too many #1 seeds in his Final Four. He has fallen hard from a tie of 11th to a tie for 85th. Looks like the Lunatic is finally in his proper place.

I should also mention that we have our first “unofficial” guaranteed prize – last place in the pool. Amy Lacks’ picks of Tennessee, St. John’s, Texas A&M and VCU finished with 270 points and so with no more ability to score points, she should have that prize locked up. I would say our classic line – “You should not have challenged the Lunatic!” But we all know that is not true – everyone should challenge the Lunatic. But she certainly shouldn’t have challenged Debbe Evans, who has correctly predicted 53 of the 60 games this year (including a perfect 12 for 12 in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8).

I will do my best over the week to get the scenarios files up. That way, we can all see the outcomes that give us the best chances to win.

Good luck to everyone in continuing to Stomp the Lunatic!!!!

The game finished as a 6 point game, but it was never really that close. If Michigan State had shot close to the way they did in the last 3 minutes, it might have been a different game. But the Spartans would go for stretches where they simply could not score, and so while their defense held Auburn to 70 points, it did not matter.

At the end of the day, you simply can’t spot the SEC champions 17 points and expect that you can come back. This game basically was over in a 5 minute stretch in the first half.

Auburn did have a scare with Johni Broome falling awkwardly on his elbow and wrist trying to block one of the Spartans’ wild drives. But he was able to come back by the end of the game.

So we have 4 number 1 seeds in the Final Four for only the second time in history. But to be fair, the Lunatic used to mention the fact that the conference champions amazingly find a way of rising to the top.

And so we have the SEC regular season champion Auburn playing the SEC tournament champion Florida. And then we have the ACC regular season/tournament champion Duke playing the Big 12 regular season/tournament champion Houston.

Looks like it has been a game of runs. The women’s game between UCLA and LSU had gotten interesting. LSU’s Flau’Jae Johnson hit a layup to cut the UCLA lead to 3. But UCLA’s Gabriela Jacquez hit two free throws and a three-pointer with about 1:30 to play to lead the Bruins to victory.

I had thought the men’s game had only been going for a short amount of time – so was surprised to turn on the game and the first thing I see is Bruce Pearl being interviewed and asked about what they are doing right on this 17-0 run.

Michigan State would score the next 7 points to chip the lead away, and so at halftime they are only down 9. Johni Broome from Auburn is a beast – with 17 points and 11 rebounds and it is only halftime!

Can Auburn hang on to give us 4 number 1 seeds for the first time since 2008?

So the Houston game was so exciting that Charlie and I went outside to play some HORSE. For those who need to know, I won the first game and Charlie won the second game. It was so hot out that we decided to just call it a good game after that.

Elizabeth tried switching to the women’s tournament but UCLA is now up double digits on LSU.

Looks like we didn’t miss much in the men’s game. With 7 seconds left, Houston is up 69-50.

Really not much to blog about – I did get to golf this morning – sadly my chipping game had returned to normal and I shot a 98.

One of the interesting pieces of the midwest region was that everyone had a home court advantage over Houston – especially Purdue who was an hour away. While Tennessee fans travelled well, they really never were able to get into the game.

Even in their first round games, their closest site was Wichita , Kansas – which is 9 hours away.

So now, the Cougars will head to the Final Four – just 3 hours away at San Antonio. I suspect Texas will be a much more friendly environment for the Big 12 champions. Although, Houston has seemed pretty comfortable being the road team

So, the only thing standing in the way of all 4 top seeds advancing to the Final Four is Big 10 regular season champion Michigan State. I am sure that the SEC regular season champions from Auburn will have plenty to say about that.

We know Houston has one of the best defenses in the country. But this is impressive. The Cougars have held Tennessee to 15 points in the first half.

They are also scoring points – so they are up 19 points at halftime as they seem determined to ensure the Big 12 makes the Final Four.

Not much more to say but that – just total domination.