Stomp The Lunatic

The Aztecs tried to make it interesting.  Lamont Butler made a steal and a layup, and then Keshad Johnson got fouled in the lane and hit two free throws to cut the lead to 5 points with a little over 5 minutes to play.  But as the Huskies did throughout the game, everytime the Aztecs tried to make a run, Connecticut had an answer.

The Huskies would finish the game on a 16-4 run.  UConn’s Jordan Hawkins drilled a three pointer from the top of the key.  Tristen Newton was fouled and hit two free throws, and then drove the lane for an impressive layup.  Adama Sanogo got fouled in the lane and hit both free throws, and suddenly, the lead was back to 14 points with 2 minutes to play.  UConn would coast from there to a 76-59 victory.

It was an amazing season for San Diego State – it is rare when a team from a smaller conference like the Mountain West gets as far as the Aztecs did.  But in the end, the Huskies were just too much – they managed to win all 6 of their NCAA tournament games by double digits.  It was a truly dominating tournament by the Huskies.

Congratulations to Connecticut on winning their 5th ever national championship!!!!

San Diego State started the game off hot with two three pointers to take a 10-6 lead.  And then, the Connecticut Huskies took the game over.

There was a stretch of 10 entire minutes where San Diego State did not make a field goal.  The Huskies had a pretty balanced attack as Tristen Newton scored 9, and Jordan Hawkins and Adama Sanogo both added 7.  And after that hot start, Connecticut went on a 30-10 run.

Fortunately, San Diego State’s Keshad Johnson and Darrion Trammell scored the last two baskets of the half to cut the lead to 12.

We can’t crown the Huskies just yet – remember last year Kansas came back from down big to win.  Remember that San Diego State was down 13 to Florida Atlantic, 8 to Creighton, 9 to Alabama, and 7 to Charleston during the tournament.  They even came back from being 11 down to Utah State in the Mountain West Tournament championship game.

Do the Aztecs have any more magic left in their season to pull one more comeback?  Or will the Huskies continue to beat everyone in the tournament by double digits?  Only 20 minutes of basketball left in the season to decide a champion!!!!!

The game is ready to tip off!!!!  Will Connecticut continue to play unstoppable offense and shutdown defense to roll to a national championship.  Or will San Diego State be able to win one for the non-power conferences and upset the dominant Huskies with their incredible defense.

Should be a great game!!!!!  Let’s go!!!!

The final handicapping blog has been posted.  The Lunatic figures he wants to see San Diego State win, and that in itself probably bodes poorly for them.  Add in it that Connecticut is 4-0 in title games, no 5 seed has won the tournament, and the last non-power conference team to win depending on your opinion of what was a power conference was either UNLV in 1990 or when UConn had switched for a short amount of time to the American to win their title in 2014 under their conference’s alignment.  And the ball from the Lunatic’s HORSE battle sided with UConn.

So, I have the UConn Huskies to cover the 7.5 in a low-scoring affair under 132.5 points.  That will probably be wrong, just like I was on both Final Four games.  At this point, it is clear the Lunatic is struggling between his analytic expertise, his sleep deprivation, and his amazing capability to jinx teams.  So, who knows what will happen.

Regardless, it should be great.  This will likely have to be my last post until game time.  It is late, and with Katie’s rugby practice tomorrow, and some of the administrative tasks such as validating the standings are correct in front of me, I will probably be pretty busy until the game starts.  But the Lunatic will definitely be excited to watch at 9:20 pm tomorrow when the Connecticut Huskies and San Diego Aztecs will tip-off to determine the men’s 2023 national championship!!!!  Enjoy the championship game!!!!

Well – I wanted to come up with something very analytical, but I am running out of time, so I am going to punt a little.  I came up with something that I liked how it ranked the teams, but then I don’t have a good way to combine them – so as the grader, I will combine them the way I want to.

Basically, I started each game at an 80 – then I had a complicated method that moved the team’s grade based on how they did according to the Vegas spread of the game, and then modified further based on if they won, if they were supposed to win, how much of a difference existed with the seeds, etc.  I also then modified the starting point for further rounds – because I felt that a team that got to the Elite 8 shouldn’t end up with a bad grade because they got blown out (such as Gonzaga vs. Connecticut).

So, the single bid conferences, for better or worse, got the grade of their team.  For the multi-bid conferences, the Lunatic got a little creative based on other information such as how many teams did better than expected.

A+ – Northeast (Fairleigh Dickinson), Ivy (Princeton), Conference USA (Florida Atlantic) – These three teams were the main Cinderella stories of the tournament (along with San Diego State…)

A – Big East (Connecticut – A+, Creighton – A, Xavier – B, Marquette – C, Providence – C).  This conference ended up doing +3 compared to their seed, with UConn and Creighton performing well, and Marquette under-performing.  With UConn in the Final, they get the best grade from the power conferences

A – Southern (Furman) – their victory over Virginia got them a high grade.

A- – ACC (Miami – A+, Pitt – A-, Duke – A-, NC State – C, Virginia – D-).  They had the most teams with As, including Miami’s unexpected Final Four, but have to ding them a little for Virginia’s first round loss.

B+ – WCC (Gonzaga – B+, St. Mary’s – B-).  Both teams won a game in the tournament, and Gonzaga got to the Elite 8.

B+ – Sun Belt (Louisiana), Atlantic Sun (Kennesaw State), Horizon (Northern Kentucky), Southland (Texas A&M – Corpus Christi) – none of these teams pulled the upset, but they certainly outperformed based on the Vegas line.

B+ – Mountain West (San Diego State – A+, Boise State – C-, Utah State – D, Nevada – F).  I bumped them up because of San Diego State’s amazing run.  The other 3 teams all lost, but their seed suggested that is how they should have performed.  But they can’t get an A with the other teams doing so poorly against the spread.

B – SEC (Arkansas – A-, Missouri – B, Alabama – B, Auburn – B-, Tennessee – B-, Kentucky – C+, Mississippi State – C, Texas A&M – F).  Arkansas and Auburn outperformed their seed, but Alabama shockingly lost in the Sweet 16, so along with A&M’s loss, they finished -1 below their seed expectations.  Which sadly was still better than the others.  It is a little weird saying that a conference with 8 teams not getting any to the Elite 8 is better than the others – but to be fair, only Alabama was supposed to get that far and they did better than Purdue or Kansas did.

B- – Southland (Texas A&M – Corpus Christi), WAC (Grand Canyon)

C+ – OVC (SE Missouri State) – Vegas line almost picked their game exactly to what happened.  Nothing to be ashamed of

C – Big 12 (Kansas State – A-, Texas – B+, TCU – C+, Baylor – C+, Kansas – C, West Virginia – C, Iowa State – F). So much was expected out of the Big 12, they were supposed to be the best conference in college basketball.  They had 4 of the top 12 teams in the seeds.  And yet, none made it to the Final Four.  Kansas State getting to the Elite 8 was the only team to be above expectations, but Baylor and Kansas losing in the 2nd round killed their grade.  I debated whether they should be above or below the Big 10 because at least Texas and Kansas State made it to the Elite 8, but both finished -4 to seed, and so I eventually settled that they did equally bad.

C – Big 10 (Penn State – A, Michigan State – A, Northwestern – B+, Maryland – C+, Indiana – C+, Illinois – D+, Iowa – D, Purdue – F).  They had two teams outperform their seeds in Michigan State and Penn State, and Northwestern almost upset UCLA.  But having a 1 seed lose really hurts your seed expectations.

C – Colonial (Charleston), Big Sky (Montana State), MEAC (Howard), Missouri Valley (Drake)

C- – America East (Vermont), MAC (Kent State), Patriot (Colgate), Atlantic 10 (VCU), Big West (UC-Santa Barbara)

C- – American (Houston – B-, Memphis – C-).  I almost pushed them down to a D+ despite both their grades being a C-.  This is because they both performed below seed expectations.  But since they stayed close to what the Vegas lines expected, I decided I can’t rank them below Memphis’ C- grade.

D+ – Pac 10 (Arizona State – A, UCLA – B+, USC – C-, Arizona – F).  You might think this is unfair.  But they are the only power conference to have none of their teams to better than expected.  When you have Arizona supposed to make it to the Elite 8 and get upset in the first round, and then no one make up for it to finish -4 below expectations, it gets a low grade.

D – Big South (UNC-Asheville)

D- – MAAC (Iona), Oral Roberts (Summit) – To be fair to Oral Roberts, I think Vegas over-estimated their chances against Duke, but we have to stick to the process.

F – SWAC (Texas Southern) – getting blown out in the First Four game cursed them to the bottom.

 

The referees might not have been the best, but with the way the game has gone, it probably wouldn’t have mattered.  LSU dominated this game.

I think I heard them say that LSU has scored the most points in women’s championship game history as they won 102-85.  The leading scorer of the game was Jasmine Carson from the bench.  She went 5-6 from three point range on her way of scoring 22 points.  Just to put into perspective how crazy this was, Carson had scored 11 points in LSU’s other 5 tournament games!

LSU shot 64.7% from three point range, Alexis Morris scored 21 points going 8-14 from the field (with 15 in the fourth quarter), and Ladazhia Williams scored 20 points going 9-16 from the field.  Every time, Iowa would put a run, Morris or Williams would have an answer.

I will mention that Charlie said how trashy LSU’s Angel Reese was in trash talking Caitlin Clark doing the you can’t see me sign and then pointing to her finger about hers will have a ring.  I told him the truth – I don’t support what Reese did, but Caitlin Clark’s hand gesture towards the South Carolina guard saying that she isn’t even going to guard her because she can’t shoot was just as disrespectful.  I wish that trash talking wasn’t part of the game – why not win the game with class.  But I guess if you are going to dish it out, you have to expect people are going to be happy to return it when you lose.

LSU coach Kim Mulkey was already considered one of the best coaches in women’s college basketball, but what she has done at LSU is impressive.  Two years ago, she took over a LSU program that just went 9-13.  In her first year, LSU went 26-6 and lost in the 2nd round of the tournament.  And this year, the Tigers have gone 34-2 and are the NCAA National Champions.  If Wikipedia is correct, Mulkey is 692-112 between Baylor and LSU, and has won 4 national titles – becoming one of the few coaches who have won titles at multiple schools.

Congratulations to the LSU Tigers on their first ever NCAA women’s basketball championship!!!

I normally have a lot of respect for the referees, but these refs deserve the criticism.

They are letting the centers elbow each other without calling it.  Then, they let one of the LSU players come over the back of the Iowa player for the rebound, pushing the Iowa player and the ball out of bounds – giving LSU the ball.

Then, they finally call a foul on LSU shooting a layup and call a deadball technical foul on Iowa’s Caitlin Clark for throwing the ball behind her back out of play.  It was foolish on Clark, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought she was sending the ball to a ref (there should have been one where the ball was heading).  Now, Clark has 4 fouls for something that was ridiculous.  In the classic “ball don’t lie” moment, the LSU player missed both technical FTs.

But the game is completely out of control at this point.  There is a point of letting the players play, and there is a point where you have to call a clean game.  The refs have been so inconsistent in calling touch fouls and then calling nothing.  It has been kind of awful.

Well – since our expert opinions could not predict close to anything in the Final 4.  The Lunatic decided that since his opinions seemed to be a jinx, the only possible solution is to go to the one thing that always knows – the ball.

So, I invited my son, Charlie to help me with some games of HORSE.  He would pick team he wants to represent, and the winner would obviously take the tournament.

In the women’s game, Charlie picked Iowa.  The Lunatic desperately using mid-ranged shots somehow pulled out a victory of HORSE – HOR.

In the men’s game, we decided since I was hot, it made sense for Charlie to take San Diego State (not to mention, I think Charlie really wanted to be San Diego State).  In a much closer battle, both of us ended to S, but somehow, the Lunatic hit a deep three and stole a second game.

Charlie then said – I want a second chance.  So, I said, “That’s fair – lets keep going”.  And so, this time, in another tight battle, we both got to S – but Charlie went to the classic behind the backboard shot, and won the third game – so Iowa and LSU were even.

Charlie said, lets finish off the women’s game – and so we started.  But in a messy game as both of our shots started to deteriorate, the Lunatic somehow ended up ahead and won HORSE – HOR.

Charlie said – No – that’s not possible, Iowa can’t lose.  Meanwhile, the Lunatic having a hard time breathing was pondering if he could really manage to play two more games.  So, I said, lets a make deal – we will say the last game for the men – which means UConn wins 2-0.  And then we can play one last game to decide the women.

This felt like win-win for the Lunatic – since it meant likely not passing out from what shouldn’t have that much exercise, but apparently was stretching my limits.  As we got ready to start, an ice cream truck randomly showed up in the court.  We both thought it was rather odd that an ice cream truck would be coming around when it was 60 degrees and right after massive storms from the night before.  But I told him he could have some.  Charlie – sensing blood in the water – suggested to make the game more interesting.  He didn’t want ice cream from the truck – he wanted real ice cream.  Ice cream that his dad would have to go get, and because of his current diet, he couldn’t have.

So, we were on – one game to decide if Iowa or LSU would win, and one game to decide if Charlie and Katie would get ice cream tonight.  The Lunatic started off strong, building a S-H lead.  But then, his age caught up to him.  And out of desperateness for ice cream, Charlie hit 4 in a row.  Somehow, the Lunatic managed to hit two of the shots, but his lead was down to S-R.  Charlie then went for a behind a backboard shot and missed.  And out of true desperation, the Lunatic went for a deep three and I missed it totally – not even coming close to the rim.  We then both preceeded to miss several shots.  Finally, mercifully, the Lunatic his a shot around the free throw line, and the pressure was too much for Charlie.  LSU wins HORSE – HOR.

So the ball predicts LSU and Connecticut as the National Champions.  But Charlie is still trying convince me that ice cream certainly sounds like a good way to end the day.  We will have to see if the ball don’t lie.

 

There was no stopping the Connecticut Huskies, as they are making their 5th National Championship appearance since 1999.

I don’t remember the exact number, but the broadcast mentioned that Miami had missed something like 15 layups.  Every drive to the basket was contested.  The Hurricanes managed to cut the lead from 20 down to 8, but it never got closer, as the Huskies cruised to a 72-59 victory.

Adama Sanogo finished with 21 points, as the Hurricanes had no answer for the big man.  Jordan Hawkins added 13 points, but the real story was the Huskies defense.

Congratulations to the UConn Huskies as they will play for their 5th National Championship – if I heard right from the broadcast, they have not lost a game in the Final 4 in any of their 5 appearances.  And their last 3 titles were all won in the state of Texas.

So, we will have the 4th seeded Connecticut Huskies playing for their 5th title since 1999 against the 5th seeded San Diego State Aztecs, who are playing in their first ever national championship game.

The Connecticut Huskies just dominated the first half, ending with Alex Karaban hitting a three pointer at the buzzer to give the top remaining seed a 37-24 lead.

You knew it would be that kind of night when Huskies’ 6’9″ Forward Adama Sanogo, who only hit 17 three pointers all season, hit two three pointers to start the game.  The Hurricanes didn’t have an answer for him in the lane either, as he rolled for 13 points going 5-6 from the field.

But the big story is that the Huskies defense is stopping the explosive Miami offense, as the Hurricanes are only shooting 25% from the field.  The 24 points is the lowest total number of points the Hurricanes have scored all season.

UConn has beaten everyone in the tournament by over 15 points, and they have a 13 minutes lead at halftime.  It just doesn’t look like anything can stop the Huskies.  But as we saw in the first game, teams can come back from double digits, and the Hurricanes have had their own experience doing that as they needed a second half comeback to beat the Texas Longhorns.

Twenty minutes of basketball left to see who will join San Diego State in the championship game!!!