Stomp The Lunatic

Everyone knows that I am huge fan of statistics, especially when it comes to predicting the games.  But that doesn’t mean that I can’t criticize the numbers from time to time.  And the problem that I have is all of the best rankings have the same glitch – I have a suspicion is because an over-weighting of strength of schedule but I can’t exactly put my finger on it.

The team that was creating the outlier for me was West Virginia.  But the last few games they have played have been strong.  Maybe that will come for this team as well.  But it is messing up my bracketology analysis.

That team, of course, is Arkansas.  The NET has 19-12 Arkansas as the 18th ranked team in the country.  Historically, this means that Arkansas is a lock to be in the tournament.  I think that they probably should be considered a bubble team.  The problem I have with Arkansas (and to the same extent, West Virginia) is that they are 8-10 in the SEC (for a tie for 9th in the standings).

Lets look closer at the SEC NET rankings of the teams ahead or tied with Arkansas in the standings.

2) Alabama (26-5, 16-2 – 1st) – 4th in AP

3) Tennessee (22-9, 11-7 – tied 4th) – 17th in AP

18) Arkansas (19-12, 8-10 – tied 9th)

20) Kentucky (21-10, 12-6 – 3rd) – 23rd in AP

23) Texas A&M (23-8, 15-3 – 2nd) – 18th in AP

32) Auburn (20-11, 10-8 – 7th)

46) Mississippi State (20-11, 8-10 – tied 9th)

48) Missouri (23-8, 11-7 – tied 4th) – 25th in AP

60) Florida (16-15, 9-9 – 8th)

82) Vanderbilt (18-13, 11-7 – tied 4th)

I understand that the SEC has an unbalanced schedule.  Arkansas even was probably on the wrong end of that as they had to play Alabama, Texas A&M and Kentucky twice – which is a tough schedule.  But still, Texas A&M finished 7 games ahead in the standings and is being ranked 5 positions worse than the Razorbacks.  Missouri is 3 games ahead in the standings, ranked in the 25th in the AP poll, and yet is 30 spots behind in the rankings the committee uses to rank games.

This difference is so much that when Tennessee hosted the 9th place team in the SEC, it was a Quad 1 win.  When Tennessee hosted the 4th place team in the SEC that is also ranked 25th in the polls, it was a Quad 2 loss.  Let that sink in for a second.  The big reason why Kansas is likely going to be a 1 seed is because of their 15 Quad 1 wins (more than anyone else in the country).  And yet, when Tennessee hosted a team ranked in the top 25, not only is that considered a loss, it is actually considered a bad loss since it isn’t to another Quad 1 team.

Now, Tennessee doesn’t need to worry about this being a bad loss – they are ranked in the polls and somehow 3rd in the NET.  But a team closer to the bubble like Auburn doesn’t get the same level of credit for beating a ranked team.

It might work out when you fully look at Arkansas’ schedule, that it makes sense.  When you have to play on the road at Alabama, Baylor, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, you are going to pile up some losses.  But from first look, something feels off.  And then if I can’t trust what games are Quad 1 (am I really supposed to believe that playing any road game in the Big 12 and playing at home against anyone in the Big 12 with a 9-9 conference record is considered a Quad 1 game, but playing Missouri at home is not).

I have to keep reminding myself that the committee doesn’t care about my opinion – the rankings are what they use.  And they have their own personal eye tests that I have no clue about (otherwise, I could predict them better).  But it doesn’t make me feel good.

Not a huge amount of shock Monday night. Louisiana and Furman won their conference championships. Oral Roberts, Charleston, St Mary’s and Gonzaga all won their semi-finals. Bubble teams breathed a sigh of relief as the WCC powerhouses both won.

And so Tuesday heats up with 5 championships and 4 bids on the line. That is because in the NEC, Merrimack is still in their transitional period and can not play in the NCAA tournament, so their opponent, 2nd seed Fairleigh Dickinson gets the bid.

The big game everyone wants to see is the West Coast championship at 9 pm as #9 Gonzaga squares off against #16 St. Mary’s. The Colonial has Charleston (30-3) vs UNC-Wilmington (24-9) at 7 pm. The Horizon tips off at 7 pm with Northern Kentucky (21-12) vs Cleveland State (21-12). And the other late final at 9 pm is the Summit where Oral Roberts (29-4) goes against North Dakota St (16-16).

Also, for the local Virginia fans. Richmond will hope to strike up some March magic as they start their Atlantic 10 tournament at 11:30 am vs UMass. And Virginia Tech starts off their ACC tournament hopes at 7 pm against Notre Dame.

It is still the calm of the storm. And the Lunatic has showtunes running in his head. From Hamiliton, “In the eye of the hurricane, there is quiet. For a moment. Yellow sky.”. The storm is coming. But enjoy these great games today while the calm gives you a chance.

Monday and Tuesday are the calm before the storm for the Lunatic. Its a chance for him to try some analytical methods to predict the bracket that always tend to look terrible before he desperately drops everything and spends multiple days watching conference tournament games and pouring over team pages.

But Monday and Tuesday is also nice for another reason. Because these are the days that the attention is all on the non-power conferences. None of the power conferences are playing until Tuesday, and those games are of the last place teams trying desperately to win 5 games to keep their season alive. If a bubble team is playing, they typically have to win multiple games to make it interesting to watch.

That is not the case for most of the games on Monday and Tuesday in the non-power conferences. You have a bunch of semi-finals and finals filled with teams that know their season hinges on one or two last wins.

But before we preview tonight’s slate, a couple teams earned some recognition from Sunday. In the Big South, regular season champ UNC-Asheville found themselves down 14 pts to Campbell with 7:37 to play. And then senior guard Tajion Jones lifted his team on his shoulders and led a rally, scoring 16 of UNCA’s last 25 points to lead them to a 77-73 victory.

In the Atlantic Sun, co-regular season champs Kennesaw State and Liberty met in a game that went to the wire. Liberty’s Colin Porter drilled a three-pointer with 23 seconds to play to tie the game at 66. But Kennesaw State’s Terrell Burden drove to the basket and got fouled with less than a second, hit one of the free throws, and Kennesaw State will be going to their first ever NCAA Tournament!

And while not as exciting, it was still equally impressive. In the Missouri Valley, Drake jumped out to a big lead early and cruised to a 77-51 victory over MVC regular season champion Bradley to win the Valley’s auto-bid.

Tonight, at 7 pm, there are two more auto-bids up-for-grabs. In the Sun Belt, 2nd seed Louisiana (25-7) will try to stop the upset run from 8th seed South Alabama (19-15). In the Southern conference, regular season co-champ Furman (26-7) will try to stop 7 seed Chattanooga (18-16). Will the top teams remaining win their conference tournament, or will the two Cinderella teams knock off the top 2 teams from their conference to steal the bid (as South Alabama took out Southern Miss and Chattanooga took out Samford on Saturday).

We also have some significant regular season champions playing their semi-finals. Oral Roberts (28-4, NET 42) play in the Summit semis at 7 against St Thomas. Youngstown State (24-8, NET 117) defend their regular season title in the Horizon semis at 7 against Northern Kentucky. And College of Charleston (29-3, NET 53) plays at 8:30 in the Colonial semis against Towson (21-11). Oral Roberts and Youngstown State have no Quad 1 victories so while they have 28+ wins, it is important they get 2 more victories.

But the true main event starts at 9 pm when the West Coast semis start in Las Vegas. First, #16 St. Mary’s (25-6) will take on BYU (19-14). And then, #9 Gonzaga (26-5) will take on San Francisco (20-13). If you are a fan of a bubble team, you need to be rooting for both Gonzaga and St. Mary’s to win tonight. Otherwise, there will be some very nervous fans on Tuesday hoping that BYU or San Francisco can’t steal the WCC auto-bid. And if you follow the WCC teams, we all know that while Gonzaga and St. Mary’s are clearly the best in the conference, BYU (who has beaten #24 Creighton, Dayton, and Utah this year) and San Francisco (who beat Arizona State and lost by 2 to Gonzaga earlier in the season) are both dangerous teams.

So while the power conferences might not be playing, there should be some great basketball tonight. Enjoy the games.

First, to give credit where it is due. I mistakenly said that SE Missouri St was the first team to earn an automatic bid from their thrilling overtime victory in the Ohio Valley championship.

In the Northeast conference, regular season champion Merrimack is still in their 4 year transitional period to Division I and thus are ineligible for the tournament. The NEC didn’t want to not let Merrimack participate in the tournament for doing nothing wrong other than being too new to Division I – so they made a decision that the runner-up in the tournament would advance if Merrimack wins the conference tournament.

That scenario has somewhat played out. Merrimack has advance to Tuesday’s final – so the other semi-finalist will automatically win the bid. That honor went to Fairleigh Dickinson. The 2nd seed in the NEC beat St. Peter’s by 20 to win the NEC automatic bid.

FDU is a pretty nice turnaround story. Last season they were 4-22 and fired their coach. So, first year coach Tobin Anderson took over the program and has led them to a 19-14 record and now, to the NCAA Tournament.

So, we have two teams dancing – not one. Congrats to both FDU and SE Missouri St.

Three more teams will punch their tickets today to the dance. In the Big South, regular season champ UNC-Asheville (26-7) will try to hold off 7th seed Campbell’s (16-17) upset run for the tournament.

In the Missouri Valley, the top 2 teams will play for the championship as regular season champion Bradley (25-8) will play runner-up Drake (26-7). While both teams are pretty good, neither probably has the resume for an at large bid, so this should be an exciting game from a conference known for producing Cinderella teams in the past.

Finally, in the Atlantic Sun sees its co-regular season champs play as Kennesaw State (25-8) play Liberty (26-7). Both teams finished 15-3 in conference, with Kennesaw State getting the top seed thanks to their 88-81 victory at home against Liberty. Liberty is one of the classic small conference teams – their NET ranking of 40 means that they will at least get a look from the committee if they lose today, but their 0-3 record in Quad 1 games probably will make that a very quick look before the committee removes them from the consideration list. So – once again, two teams that know their NCAA hopes rest on one final game.

The final regular season games for the American and Big Ten conferences are also today – so after today, every remaining game should be a conference tournament game. In the American, potential bubble team Memphis gets a chance for a big game as they host #1 Houston.

The Big 10 has plenty of fun. Purdue continues to try to get one of the top seeds as they host Illinois, a team that is close enough to the bubble that they could use another win. Michigan, who is much more on the bubble, travels to Bloomington to play the 15th ranked Hoosiers. We have a couple of trap games as Iowa hosts Nebraska and Wisconsin, who desperately needs a win, travels to Minnesota.

But the best two games from the Big 10 might be as 21st Maryland goes on the road to Penn State, and Northwestern heading on the road to Rutgers. Both Penn State and Rutgers desperately need a win to boost their chances, while Maryland and Northwestern are part of the 7 way tie for 2nd place who are fighting for the last 3 double byes in the conference tournament.

Lots of fun basketball. One more rugby game – go Strikers!

SE Missouri State looked like they were on their way to the NCAA Tournament. They led most of the game, and extended their lead to 7 points with just 1:12 left to play. Then came chaos.

Tennessee Tech’s Jayvis Harvey starts chipping away at the lead. First a 3 pointer cuts the lead to 4. Then, a layup to cut the lead to 2. After a turnover by SE Missouri St, Harvey dribbles towards the FT line and finds Brett Thompson wide open for a three pointer to give Tennessee Tech the lead with 15 seconds.

Chris Harris tries to hit a game winning 3 pointer with 3 seconds – and gets fouled by Jaylen Sebree. Harris calmly hits all 3 free throws and the Redhawks are up by two points. But it looked like Sebree would redeem himself. With no timeouts left, Sebree takes the ball out, and launches a baseball pass to the other side of the court. Tech’s Diante Wood would rise above multiple players, turn towards the basket and launch a three pointer as time is slipping away. As the clock strikes 0, Wood’s shot goes in and the Tennessee Tech’s bench runs onto the field in celebration.

Only one problem – the official review shows that Wood’s right foot is on the line. The game winner was only a game tying shot. We are going to overtime!

Tennessee Tech continues off their momentum to take a 4 point lead. But this time, SE Missouri St leads the comeback. Phillip Russell would make a nice move to the basket and lay the ball in to give SE Missouri St the lead. And then he would hit his final 5 free throws to send SE Missouri State to the NCAA Tournament!!!!

The Cyclones were flying high. On February 4th, they upset Kansas 68-53 and moved up to 11th in the polls. And then they went into a free fall.

Iowa State went on to lose 6 of their next 7 games – now I understand the Big 12 is a brutal conference, but this streak included a loss to 7th place Oklahoma State, two losses to 8th place West Virginia, and a loss to last place Oklahoma.

Then, they announce that 3rd leading scorer senior guard Caleb Grill, due to a “failure to meet the program’s expectations.”. Grill then took responsibility for it and that he said something he regrets and is dealing with mental health issues.

So, of course, when everything is falling apart, what do you expect on your schedule to finish the season. That’s right – a road trip to 7th ranked Baylor. You have to figure this is going to be a train wreck – right.

A train wreck for Baylor. Because the Cyclones traveled to Waco and beat the Baylor Bears 73-58. Not sure how anything that has happened to Iowa State after winning against Kansas makes sense – but sometimes reality doesn’t make sense. Part of the beauty of college basketball.

Well – game 1 of rugby didn’t go well but the kids played hard and that is all you can ask. Annoyed at the parents from the other team that decided since we gave a couple extra feet between the sideline and our chairs that this meant it was OK for them to stand in front of us and block our view the whole game. At one point, one of the parents who was wearing a cape actually turned to head back to her kids sitting elsewhere and hit Elizabeth in the face with her cape. When someone told her what she did, she snidely said sorry – almost more like “I guess it was my fault but how dare you be sitting there”. Between the game being a blowout and the parents being jerks, was not a good start to the rugby tournament. Still super proud of Katie (a 7th grader), taking the ball and charging into freshmen HS boys and slightly moving the pile before getting tackled.

As for basketball, the best noon game might be Texas A&M vs Alabama – where the Aggies have jumped out to a 26-13 lead on the 2nd ranked team in the country. There are also some bubble teams fighting. The more interesting one is Iowa State playing 7th ranked Baylor on the road (and currently up 22-14). Then, in the Big 10, Michigan State is up 30-23 in a trap game against Ohio State. The Buckeyes are certainly good enough to pull the upset, but Michigan State probably won’t get a lot of credit for winning. But it certainly could hurt their resume if they lose.

At 2 pm, the SEC is the conference to watch – as 12th ranked Tennessee goes on the road to Auburn, who really could use a win. Then, 23rd ranked Kentucky goes on the road to Arkansas – who also could use a win. Not saying that the ranked teams don’t need more wins, but the difference is between seeding vs. dancing. Pressure is always on the team trying to show they deserve an invite.

The Big 12 has an interesting game as well where West Virginia hosts 11th ranked Kansas State. The Mountaineers are a fascinating bubble case. Their NET ranking of 24th suggests that they are a lock to be in the tournament. But being 6-11 and in 8th place of the 10 team Big 12 suggests they might not make it if they lose again (since that number of losses along with a loss in the conference tournament would tie the most number of losses by an at-large team).

Hopefully, the afternoon rugby game will go better for Katie’s team. For everyone else, enjoy the basketball games!!!

The Lunatic will be blogging from Katie’s rugby tournament. Lots of waiting and watching other games while we wait for Katie to play.

But idle time means blogging time. And to start with, we already have our first casualty of March. That is because Morehead State went 14-4 in the Ohio Valley Conference to win the regular season championship.

Then, last night, they were upset in the OVC semifinals by SE Missouri State. So now, the 5th seeded Redhawks (18-16) will play 2nd seeded Tennessee Tech (16-16) for the Ohio Valley championship and the first automatic bid for the NCAA Tournament.

There might be bigger games today. At 4pm, #3 Kansas plays #9 Texas. At 6 pm, #16 Miami plays #25 Pitt with the winner earning at least a share of the ACC championship. They will know by tipoff if #13 Virginia won their share by taking their game at 2 pm at home against Louisville. And if you are willing to stay up late, you can’t miss #4 UCLA try to make their case for a #1 seed when they host #8 Arizona at 10 pm. Most of the time, the East Coast misses some of the great basketball that is played out West – but this should be a game worth staying up late for.

And of course you can’t forget the huge bubble games and rivalry games – 6:30 pm will see North Carolina try to save their season as they host Duke in what is possibly the greatest rivalry in the sport. I am sure I could find more great games today, but Katie’s game is about to start!

So much good basketball today! Hopefully, I will also enjoy 2 games of rugby by the Richmond Strikers! It must be March!

For those who have not been following, while there are major games going on – including UCLA vs. Arizona State right now, the college basketball world almost saw history made in Youngstown, Ohio as Detroit Mercy was playing top seed Youngstown State in the quarterfinals of the Horizon conference tournament.

That is because Detroit Mercy’s Antoine Davis needed 25 points to tie “Pistol” Pete Mavarich’s career scoring record of 3,667 points.  While Mavarich did his amazing feat in only 3 seasons at LSU, by averaging 44.2 points per game without a 3 point line, he has set the NCAA standard for multiple generations of players.

Unfortunately for Davis, his bid for history fell just short.  With Detroit Mercy behind 5 points with 10 seconds left, Antoine hit two free throws to get to 22 points for the game and cut the lead to 3.  After fouling, Youngstown State hit two free throws to bring the lead back to 5 and setting the stage for potential history.

Everyone knew the ball would be in Davis’ hands, and he got a three pointer off with 4 seconds left.  But this history buzzer beater did not go in, and Davis fell 3 points short of tying the long-time record.

Still, you have to tip you hat to Antoine Davis for coming so close to the record.  Unfortunately, with Detroit Mercy at 14-19, it is likely that this game ended Davis’ NCAA career.  But any time that a player can bring such attention to a Horizon conference quarter-final, it is good for the game of college basketball.

Congratulations to Antoine Davis on an amazing NCAA career!

So happy that the Boilers have won the regular season Big 10 title outright!!!!   Maybe now that pressure is off, they can go back to winning games, since it has been a rough stumble to the finish.

Of course, you never know what is going to happen in the Big 10.  The Boilers on Saturday night found their lead down to 1 game over Northwestern.  By Sunday, Northwestern lost to Maryland to lock a share of the title for Purdue but put them 2 games ahead of 4 teams.  And by midway through the first half, Michigan lost in double overtime to Illinois to join Northwestern, Indiana and Maryland in losing their games this week to give the title to Purdue (and create a 7 way tie for 2nd place).

And it would have been an 8 way tie if Rutgers didn’t blow a 10 point lead with 1 minute left to 8-20 Minnesota on a buzzer beating 3 pointer (that then took 10 minutes for the refs to look at replay after replay to finally verify that the Gophers had pulled the upset).

That is why I love college basketball so much – you just can’t make this stuff up.   Going into the final weekend with one game left and 7 teams are tied for 2nd place in the Big 10.  Awesome!