Stomp The Lunatic

Other than Purdue and Alabama losing early, it has actually been a pretty good tournament for the Lunatic. I did well in predicting what the bracket would be. And the handicapping against the lines has been going well. OK – the handicapping against the over/under totals has been going well.

At this moment, the Lunatic is up $316 imaginary dollars on the totals (40-22), but has given $87 back on the lines (32-30). Still, if you told the Lunatic at this point, he would be $229 ahead, he would take it. He is basically playing with imaginary house money at this point – if he can just win 2 more bets of the last 10, he will end up ahead for the 2023 Tournament.

The Lunatic went back and forth multiple times on both games today – and shared some of that debate on his handicapping blog. But for those who want the summary to see how the Lunatic does, he is kind of hedging knowing he needs just 2 more wins. Creighton and Miami will be looking for fast-paced high scoring games. San Diego State and Texas will be the defensive teams looking to shut down those explosive offenses. So, since the Lunatic settled on San Diego State (+2.5) and Texas (-3.5), he then went and took both overs (134.5 for SD St / Creighton and 148 for Texas/Miami). In theory, if I am wrong on the defensive teams, I should at least cover the overs.

We shall see – it would be nice to be able to go into the final weekend knowing that I can’t lose my imaginary handicapping game. I have to have something that I can win – you all are too talented as you always manage to stomp me.

Enjoy the games today!!!

While Katie and I watched Les Miserables, the first two teams punched their ticket to Houston. Thanks to March Madness’s app Condensed Games video, I was able to catch up pretty quickly today – it is a nice feature for those of us who don’t want to miss a moment.

In the night cap, Gonzaga and Connecticut were tied at 25 with about 5 minutes in the first half. And then in a blink of an eye, it was over. The Huskies would finish the half on a 14-7 run to take a 7 point half-time lead. The Huskies then scored 12 of the first 14 points of the second half to extend the lead to 17, and never looked back. Jordan Hawkins led UConn with 20 points (including 6-10 from three point range). Andre Jackson Jr did a little of everything with 8 points, 10 assists and 9 rebounds. And the Huskies are heading to Houston for the Final Four.

But the bigger news of the night happened in the first game at Madison Square Garden. Florida Atlantic started off with a 42-38 lead at halftime. But Kansas State would start off the second half on a run. It looked like the Wildcats were well in control as Markquis Nowell hit a three pointer from deep and then had one of his trademark passes in the lane to Nae’Qwan Tomlin for a layup to get a 57-50 lead. With 8 1/2 minutes left, Kansas State had answered every FAU comeback – as Nowell hit another three pointer for a 63-57 lead.

And then, Kansas State lost their answers. FAU’s big man Vladislav Golden hit a layup in the lane, and Johnell Davis found Brandon Weatherspoon in the corner for a three pointer to cut the lead to 1. And then, Golden had a big dunk with about 6 minutes to give the Owls the lead. FAU would continue their run, including a three-pointer from Alijah Martin with about 3 minutes left. Martin would later hit two free throws to finish off their 15-1 run to take a 72-64 lead.

The Wildcats continued to fight back. Massoud hits two free throws and Nowell hit another deep three pointer to cut the lead to 3. With a little over 1 minute, Johnell Davis drove to the basket and made a nice lead to extend the lead back to 5. With 24 second left after some free throws for both teams, Cam Carter made a three pointer to cut the lead to 1 point.

But the Owl’s Michael Forrest would hit 4 huge free throws, and the FAU defense would play great defense on Ismael Massoud to prevent him from getting off a shot or sending the ball back to Nowell, and the Conference USA champion won the East Regional 79-76.

Congratulations to the Owls and Huskies!!! Creighton and San Diego State have started off – so in what will hopefully be a great afternoon of basketball, we will know the two teams that will join them in Houston.

I guess I should thank Purdue. We have tickets to see Les Miserables through the Richmond Broadway Under the Stars season tonight. Katie is super excited about getting to see the show.

If Purdue had done what they were supposed to, they would be getting ready to tip off against Kansas State, and I would likely have made the decision to skip the theater. And knowing that Purdue’s weakness is fast, athletic guards, I would probably not be happy watching them try to stop Markquis Nowell.

Instead, I can watch the first half of the game and then go enjoy the theater for the night. I might go tomorrow and watch the replays on the March Madness app if they games are close – I suspect that they will be. Gonzaga vs. Connecticut should be a fantastic game tonight. And Florida Atlantic has been amazing.

It is interesting – normally I talk about how impressive it is that all the conference champions are winning to this point. This year, with all the upsets there is a little bit of a twist.

Instead of the Big 10 champion, we have Florida Atlantic – the Conference USA champion. Instead of the SEC champion, we have San Diego State – the Mountain West champion. Instead of the Pac 12 champion, we have Gonzaga – the West Coast champion. We do still have a couple of the power conferences represented as Miami (the ACC co-champ) and Texas (the Big 12 tournament champ).

This might finally be the year that a non-champion makes it. Kansas State looks really good as a second representative from the Big 12, which was considered the best conference this year. And even though Marquette was upset, the Big East still has two teams left in Creighton and Connecticut (and I think Vegas has both of them as favorites).

But lets all admit it – if our team is eliminated, wouldn’t it be fun to watch Florida Atlantic, San Diego State or Gonzaga break through and have a non-power conference win it all.

Should be a fun weekend – I will do my best to update the standings during intermission. As Les Mis sings, I Dream a Dream – four teams this weekend will have that dream come true. Enjoy the games.

Well, tonight is never what the Lunatic wants of the late games. Because they lead to him sleeping through most of the games. Creighton took control in the second half and beat Cinderella Princeton by 11. Texas dominated from start to finish as they won by 12. Double digit victories – very little drama, not much to blog about, so very tired.

That is not meant to diminish what Texas and Creighton accomplished. Creighton looks like a scary team that can score at will. Texas showed why they are the top seed remaining as they showed they could play tough defense as well as score points against a very good Xavier team. But double digit wins after midnight don’t lead to long blogs.

So, congratulations to Texas and Creighton for becoming the final two teams in the Elite 8. And lets congratulate the leaderboard. With so many top teams going down, the amount of movement could at this point be based solely on if you can get 1-2 Final Four teams right….

In the standard pool, our leader is Cooper Ams with 680 points. He is followed by both entries from William Craft at 640 and 630 points. In 4th place, we have a tie at 600 pts between Rosemary McKnight, Alan Miller and Noah Franklin. To wrap up the top 10, we have Mark Walsh and Will Richter tied for 7th at 580 points and Cooper Ams’s second entry, Scott Viera, and TJ Acuto tied for 9th at 570 points.

Cooper Ams also leads our upset pool at 249 points. William Craft is 7 points back in 2nd, followed by Will Richter (230), Cooper’s second entry (226) and Noah Franklin (226).

We have a tie for the lead in the second chance pool, as Kathleen Godwin and Ian Berglund lead at 280 points (pretty impressive to get 7 of these 8 games right). There is a large tie for 3rd place at 240 points between Sarah Ahles, TJ Acuto, Scott Grimes, Cooper Bradley, Cooper Ams, Troy Cole, Jocelyn Knox and Ann Schumaker.

As for the Lunatic, his picks show exactly how crazy today was. He started today in a tie for 97th place, only got 1 game right (Texas) and somehow finished today in a tie for 97th place. I would say that he is probably done as his champion of Alabama went down today, but with so many upsets, it is unclear what will happen for entries that can manage to get 1-2 Final Four teams picked….

If my validation page is right, only 6 entries who predicted Creighton can still correctly pick the South region (no one picked San Diego State), and only 17 entries can correctly pick the East (with 16 for Kansas State and 1 for Florida Atlantic). And only 1 of the Creighton entries picked a team from the upper half of the bracket who is still left to win the tournament. There are a lot more people who have picked either Texas, Miami FL, Gonzaga or Connecticut – so that will likely be where the real excitement exists as far as who will win the Stomp the Lunatic contest.

So, if you still have Texas, Miami FL, Gonzaga, Connecticut (or some of the amazing people who picked Creighton, Kansas State or Florida Atlantic), good luck with your picks!!!!

As I was watching the San Diego State / Alabama game, the Miami FL Hurricanes jumped on the last remaining #1 seed. With about 15 minutes left, it was a 2 point lead at 51-49. With about 10 minutes left, Miami’s Wooga Popler hit a three pointer to give them a 70-53 lead. So while many of us were watching what the Aztecs were doing, the Hurricanes went on a 19-4 run to knock off the Houston Cougars.

To put into perspective how impressive Miami was on offense, the most points that Houston had given up this season was 77 to South Florida. Only 3 other teams scored more than 70 against the Cougars (Alabama, Memphis and UCF). Miami won 89-75.

Miami’s Nijel Pack shot 7-10 from three-point range for 26 points, Isaiah Wong added 20 points, and the Hurricanes shot 51.7% from the field and 44% from three-point range.

So, in the last post, I mentioned the Lunatic curse taking out Alabama. But I don’t think this is all the Lunatic’s fault. Maybe I can be blamed for Purdue and Alabama, but for the first time in history, there will not be a single #1 seed playing in the Elite 8. But it doesn’t stop there. At this point, 8 of the top 9 teams on the Selection Committee’s seed lines have been eliminated – as only #2 Texas is still hanging on.

Lets put that further into perspective (assuming I have done my counting from Wikipedia correctly). Since 2014, 13 of the Final Four teams have been 1 seeds (40.6% of the Final 4 teams) and 7 of the Final Four teams have been 2 seeds (21.9%). I stopped in 2014 because that is last time a team seeded higher than 2 won (#7 Connecticut). In those other 7, 6 of the winners were 1 seeds and 1 was a 2 seed (Villanova in 2016). So, 7 of the last 8 tournaments were won by a 1 or 2 seed and there is now only one 2 seed left (and they still need to play their Sweet 16 game).

Longhorn fans should be scared to hell right now – not only are they only 1 or 2 seed left, but they are part of the Lunatic’s Final Four. That is a lot of pressure to deal with, but add into it that their opponent Xavier is a very good team and it should be an exciting finish in Kansas City tonight.

And while a lot of eyes will be on if Texas can be the only team from the top 8 to make the Elite 8, I would be remiss to mention that 15 seed Princeton is playing Creighton right now and leading 34-33 with 5:37 left in the first half. In this tournament, it would not be a surprise if Cinderella decided to stay a little late at the dance.

Regardless, congratulations are due to the ACC co-regular season champions. This is back-to-back years that Miami has made it to the Elite 8, which is an impressive achievement. Watch out Kansas City, the weather forecast is for a Hurricane to come to town. The only question left is whether that Hurricane will head south to Houston next week.

For the first time in history, a Mountain West team will be playing in the Elite 8.

It was a tight game of 51-50 with 7 minutes left, but Darrion Trammell would hit the next two baskets to extend the lead to 5. At that point, Alabama kept playing catchup but the Aztecs Matt Bradley hit a few big shots to build the lead to 9 with about 2 minutes to play.

Alabama would cut the lead all the way to 66-64 as Mark Sears would score the next 7 points of the game. But that would be as close as the Crimson Tide would get. Bradley hit a couple free throws to extend the lead to 4. Alabama’s Brandon Miller missed a three pointer, which led to Micah Parrish hitting another FT for the Aztecs to build the lead to 5.

And then maybe the most symbolic moment. Jahvon Quinerly drove hard to the basket, and San Diego State’s Nathan Mensah had a massive block to stop him. Mensah had 5 of the Aztecs’ 8 blocks that continued to stop the talented Alabama guards as they drove to the basket. San Diego State’s team has always been known by its defense, and that defense managed to hold the explosive Alabama team to 64 points. This includes the Aztecs completely shutting down future NBA lottery pick, Brandon Miller, who only scored 9 points on 3-19 shooting from the field.

San Diego State would hit more free throws and would finish off the #1 seeded team in the tournament with a 71-64 victory. And as I was getting ready to turn to the Miami / Houston game, one of the announcers said something that stuck with me. At this moment, one team from this list will be playing for the National Championship – #3 Kansas State, #5 San Diego State, #6 Creighton, #9 Florida Atlantic, or #15 Princeton. Let that sink in – it is not that one of those teams will make the Final 4 (since two of them will). One of those teams will be playing for the National Championship.

So, my apologies to Alabama fans. Apparently, my picks still had a chance to catch up – and so the Lunatic curse obviously had to strike. Although I am not sure that this is all my fault. But that will have to wait for the next post. For now, congratulations to the Mountain West conference champion for becoming the first Mountain West team to make the Elite 8.

It has been a crazy March for the Lunatic – to be honest, I have grown used to disappointment as my Boilers lose to a double digit seed. But I still can’t begin to tell you the amount of panic going through the Lunatic’s head as his entire website no longer existed. Every sensible part of me kept saying that I am sure there are backups, and once GoDaddy fixed their issue, the site would be back. But the Lunatic is typically sensible in March. Actually, the Lunatic is typically just not sensible (thus, the name of the Lunatic).

But the evening games really had a surprising set of 2nd halves. Tennessee was leading Florida Atlantic 27-22 in their style of defensive game. And UCLA led Gonzaga 46-33 in what looked like the Bruins were going to run away. And then March happened.

With 13 minutes left, the Owls from FAU were down 6 when Johnell Davis, who led the Owls with 15 points in the game, made a shot to cut the lead to 4, and then Michael Forrest scored the game’s next 8 points to give the Owls a 4 point lead. This was the start of an 18-2 run for the Owls that propelled the 9th seed Conference USA champions to the Elite 8. Florida Atlantic entered the Sweet 16 as the 2nd worst seed left in the tournament (with only 15 seed Princeton behind them). But they won 62-55 over Tennessee to advance to the East Regional Championship against Kansas State.

Then, there was the finale. While I was watching Florida Atlantic beat Tennessee, Gonzaga went on a huge run to take the lead. With about 1 minute left, Gonzaga’s Julian Strawther made two FTs to give the Zags an 8 point lead. Then, UCLA started to come back. David Singleton got to the line and hit both FTs to cut the lead to 6. Gonzaga’s Malachi Smith turns the ball over trying to break the UCLA press. The Bruin’s Jaime Jaquez Jr hits a layup and gets fouled. And after his FT, the Bruins are only down by 3. Gonzaga’s Anton Watson gets fouled to stop the clock and hits one of his two FTs. And Jaquez gets another layup to cut the lead to 2.

Then, Gonzaga’s Drew Timme, who led the comeback as he scored 36 points on the night, gets fouled to stop the clock, and shockingly misses both FTs. UCLA would capitalize as Tyger Campbell passed the ball to Amari Bailey, who nails a three pointer to give the Bruins the lead with 13 seconds. Gonzaga’s Hunter Sallis brings the ball up, dribbles to the top of the 3 pt line, and turns to pass the ball back to Strawther. And Strawther with 7 second in the game hits a three pointer from the March Madness logo to give Gonzaga a 2 point lead.

Malachi Smith manages to steal the ball from Tyger Campbell, and the ball gets to Strawther, who gets fouled with just 1 second to play. But Strawther can’t ice the game – he only hits one of the free throws. Campbell would get off a last ditch half-court shot to try to tie the game, but it goes off the rim and Gonzaga hangs on for a 79-76 victory.

OK – we are caught up. Don’t look now – but both remaining #1 seeds are losing in their perspective games…… Could be a wild night.

What a game!!! Tie game at 92 with a minute left and Kansas State’s Markquis Nowell ties the NCAA Tournament record with his 18th assist with a beautiful lob pass to Keyontae Johnson for a dunk to give the Wildcats a 2 point lead.

The Spartans have a three pointer in the corner but it gets called off for a foul off the screen. Malik Hall hits the first free throw but misses the second setting the stage.

Nowell draws the clock down and once again settles for a three pointer from the logo. It is an airball and goes out of bounds, but it was barely tipped by Spartan’s AJ Hoggard. So the shortest man on the court inbounds the ball to the corner to Ismael Massoud who hits the baseline jumper to give the Wildcats a three point lead and Nowell his record breaking 19th assist.

The Spartans try to get open for a three but just can’t get free. Tyson Walker tries to put up a three but as he goes up, Nowell strips the ball, chases it to half-court and runs away from the Spartans to hit a layup at the buzzer and lead the Wildcats to a 98-93 victory. Kansas State is the first team earning their spot to the Elite 8, 5’8” Markquis Nowell leads his team with 20 points and 19 assists, and Keyontae Johnson added 22 points and 6 rebounds.

For those who don’t remember, Johnson was the player from Florida who scarily collapsed on the court in a 2020 game against Florida State, and spent 3 days in a medically induced coma. It didn’t look like Johnson would ever play basketball again, but he worked his way back to health and was a graduate transfer to Kansas State – and now he will be playing on Saturday for a chance to go to the Final 4.

But while Johnson’s story is amazing, a 5’8” point guard was the star tonight as he broke the NCAA tournament record for assists in a game and in the last seconds of the game, blocked the Spartans last chance to tie the game.

Congratulations to the Wildcats from Kansas State. The team from Manhattan, Kansas won their game on Manhattan Island in New York. We will also congratulate the Connecticut Huskies who while I have been watching the exciting game at Madison Square Garden, they have been annihilating Arkansas. With an 82-57 lead over Arkansas with 3 minutes to go, it seems pretty safe that UConn will also be heading to the Elite 8.

Up 2 with 50 seconds, Kansas State decided to run the clock down before shooting. But Markquis Nowell held it too long and settled for a three pointer from the large logo over half court. So, the Spartans got the ball and Tyson Walker drove to the basket for a nice layup with 6 seconds to tie the game. Nowell rushed up the court, got into the lane, tried a very contested layup that missed and we head to overtime tied at 82. What a fun way to start the Sweet 16.

So, more details into the Lunatic’s life in March. So, I was watching the end of the Gonzaga / TCU game. I vaguely remember Gonzaga hitting a free throw to go up 77-70 with a minute to go as I watch the game in bed on my computer. I have the other 15 teams in my form to set up the Second Chance bracket and I am just waiting for the end to finish the site. Next thing, I know, my computer screen is no longer playing the game and on a screen saver, it is an hour later, and apparently I missed a pretty exciting minute with Gonzaga hanging on for a 3 point victory – including the classic Vegas bad beat as the Zags hit two free throws with a second left to cover the spread by 1.5 points only to watch TCU hit a three pointer to only lose by 3 instead of 6.

So, I entered Gonzaga into the form close to 1 am, and since I was sleep deprived, I logged in and made some preliminary picks – this lets me make sure the entry form is set up correctly. Since I had checked all the links were matching up to the right teams, I made a preliminary quick pick, and went to bed. I figured I would do ridiculous amounts of analysis over the week and would edit it later.

On to Monday, where Charlie needed to be picked up from soccer practice at 6 pm and Katie needed to be dropped off at rugby practice at 6 pm. So, drop her off, go get Charlie, take him home, head back to the rugby practice at J Sarge Reynolds, get home around 7:45, and by the time we finish dinner, it is almost 9 pm. So, I tell myself, why don’t I go upstairs,, say goodnight to the kids, and write my bracketology wrap-up on the blog. I also wanted to rewrite one of the Taylor Swift songs going through my head. I take my computer up to my bed, open up my blog site, and next thing I know it is after midnight, my screen saver is on, and nothing is written in the new blog post. Even the Lunatic can take a hint – closed the computer and went to bed.

On Tuesday, Charlie had his JV soccer game at 6 pm. So of course, we don’t get home until 8 pm, and by the time we can finish dinner and watch the new episode of Ted Lasso that all of us were excited about, it is after 9 pm. I know I need to also do my handicapping page, so I copy the Taylor Swift lyrics for I Almost Do into a post. Obviously, my prioritization skills are lacking in March. That goes quickly and I finally start looking at lines. Kansas State is considered an underdog to Michigan State – seems kind of rough to take a 7 seed from a conference that lost all their other teams in the first two rounds over a 3 seed from a conference who got multiple teams to the Sweet 16. Then again, maybe Vegas wants people who don’t want to bet against Tom Izzo in March to really have to give points for that luxury. Of course, by the time I have looked at all 8 games and think I am ready to start writing things, it is 11 pm. I think we all can figure out what happened next. Maybe in my sleep deprived state, I should not be taking my laptop to my bed.

So here we are on Wednesday – with the rugby / soccer practice dilemna. I also know as I am apparently getting old, my ability to blog in a sleep deprived state is failing. I think to myself – lets get the reminder out before practice, since I have a lot to write about and have failed miserably blogging past 9 pm. After years of doing this, I have jokes that I reuse. With so much going on, even the Lunatic has to have important administrative steps done with a template. So, I make my edits on the site, and move to send out the email – I luckily still have 10 minutes before rugby. Except I don’t copy the edits from the site and send out jokes from 2015 to 2 of my 3 email lists. Great start to a busy evening of blogging! I begin carpool for the kids.

As I wait for rugby practice to end, I look at what I entered Monday at 1 am. I have basically the same picks as my ones being beat my over 2/3rd of the entries with the only upsets being Sweet 16 games of Gonzaga and Miami. Seems bad to go with something doomed to fail. But I also seem to jinx any one I pick based on analysis. So I realized there is only one solution. I will pick my second chance bracket based on which team is closest to the site they are playing based on Google search (the regional sites for the next two rounds and Houston for the final four). It might still lead to the favorites since they are supposed to have a geographic advantage – but we already lost Purdue and Kansas, so maybe it will surprise me. As I come to this solution, rugby practice ends and Katie and I drive home. On the way home, we start singing along to Taylor Swift’s All Too Well, and ideas for next week’s lyrical project already come into my head. Realize this is not meant as a spoiler. I had been thinking of only changing a couple words of I Almost Do since Friday, so by the time next week comes along, I might have already moved on to something else. We have already seen the Lunatic’s prioritization process lacks any level of logic.

The South region is in Louisville, KY

1) Alabama (421.1 miles)

5) San Diego State (2067.1 miles)

6) Creighton (690.2 miles)

15) Princeton (703.9 miles)

So that means Alabama will beat Creighton to win the South.

The East region is in New York, NY

9) Florida Atlantic (1237.1)

4) Tennessee (707.2)

3) Kansas State (1311.9 once you go to Manhattan Kansas instead of Manhattan NY)

7) Michigan State (677.7)

So, Michigan State will upset both Kansas State and Tennessee to claim the East

The Midwest is in Kansas City, MO

1) Houston (744.6)

5) Miami FL (1463)

3) Xavier OH (589.4)

2) Texas (737.7)

So Xavier will upset Texas and Houston

The West is in Las Vegas, NV

8) Arkansas (1333.9)

4) Connecticut (2649.4)

3) Gonzaga (1037.9)

2) UCLA (270)

UCLA will beat Arkansas

Final Four is in Houston, TX

1) Alabama (614.8)

7) Michigan State (1269.8)

3) Xavier (1049.1)

2) UCLA (1547.2)

Alabama beats Xavier for the National Championship. So, looks like that means Houston and UCLA are still saved from the Lunatic curse – think that probably makes them still the favorites (unless this statement has added them to the curse’s sights – it can’t curse everyone, can it)

Well, I have almost caught up. It would be smart of me to get the Handicapping done tonight for all the Sweet 16 games, but worst case, I really only need tomorrow’s 4 games. I also would like to get the site updated on the payments I received tonight. I am still conscious enough to get that done – maybe I should do that first before sleep catches up to me. Oh – shoot, I never made the kids fill out their second chance entry. I will start with Katie since she is still downstairs. She picks a Final 4 of Princeton, Tennessee, Texas and Arkansas, and is very proud of her random clicking. At least, her final ends up Texas beating Tennessee. Then again, what do I know, she probably will do better than me.

Guess I should make Charlie fill out his entry before I continue on my journey to the Sweet 16.