Stomp The Lunatic

One storyline that I have read in different sites is that it seems like Gonzaga and Baylor are on a collision course to meet in the championship. Their game in the regular season had to get cancelled due to Covid concerns, and considering they have both been at the top of the polls the majority of the year, there was thoughts of how fitting it would be if they would finally get to meet in the tournament.

Baylor sure appears to be trying to hold up their end of the bargain. Houston is one of the best defenses in the country, and they can not do anything to stop the Bears. Baylor is up 45-20 at halftime. Jared Butler is 4-5 from three-point range as he has 17 to lead the Bears. Davion Mitchell and Matthew Mayer have added 9 as the Bears have scored the most points in a first half against Houston than any other team in country. Baylor is 57.1% from the field, including 53.3% from three-point range.

Add into it that it is also the least amount of points that Houston has scored in a first half, and you realize Baylor is winning with both offense and defense. Marcus Sasser has 17 points for the Cougars, but the rest of Houston is shooting 1-15 from the field.

This has been a very impressive half of basketball for Baylor. Sure, anything can happen in March – but I don’t know that Houston can come back from down 25.

Obviously, the Pac 12 has had an amazing tournament on the men’s side. But tonight, we need to give some recognition to the women.

In the first women’s semi-final tonight, Stanford beat South Carolina 66-65 in a wild finish where South Carolina took a lead with less than a minute left thanks to a three-pointer from Destanni Henderson. But Stanford would regain the lead off a long offensive rebound by Haley Jones that led to her making a jumper from the corner. With 16 seconds, Ashten Prechtel stole the ball for Stanford to stop South Carolina and force them to start fouling to try to extend the game. South Carolina managed to trap Stanford near the half court line and got a steal from Aliyah Boston with 8 seconds left, and South Carolina charged up field for one last chance. But Brea Beal would miss the tough layup over a Stanford defender, and Boston would miss the tip-in offensive rebound attempt – letting Stanford escape with a 1 point victory.

But the bigger shock might be Arizona’s 69-59 upset over #1 UConn. On Thursday, the news broke about Arizona feeling snubbed as a promotional video showcasing the Final 4 teams accidentally showed clips from South Carolina, UConn, and Stanford, but forgot the 3 seed Arizona Wildcats. This whole tournament has been a disaster for the NCAA – but forgetting one of the teams playing in the semi-finals in a promo about the semi-finals is an amazing level of incompetence. But it looks like the Wildcats channeled that anger at being left out and decided to punish the Huskies by eliminating the top seed from the tournament. Aari McDonald led the Wildcats with 26 points as Arizona jumped out to 32-22 halftime lead. The Huskies did make a late rally to cut the lead to 5 points, but the Wildcats hit some key shots to stop the rally and hit enough free throws at the end of the game to hold on to the victory.

So, the Pac 12 will be guaranteed the Women’s National Championship as Stanford and Arizona will battle it out for the title. Congratulations to both Stanford and Arizona for making it to the championship game.

With only three games left to go, we can start to look through the 8 possible outcomes to see what result will be the best for you. If you notice in the list of links on the left, there are now 8 scenario standings for you to see what happens if that event happens – it lists out the standings for all three pools.

IMPORTANT NOTE: These scenario standings are unofficial. I only audit the official standings on the menu at the top of the page. These are just meant for fun so you don’t have to try to guess how many people you pass (or how many pass you) based on each game.

Assuming I have no errors in my scenarios, lets see who is rooting for what to happen.

First, the Upset Pool is pretty simple. Gregg Farber has done amazingly well – thanks to his upset pick of UCLA getting to the Final 4. Gregg will win the Upset Pool if 7 of the 8 scenarios happen. In a ironic twist of fate, the only way Gregg can lose is if the favorite Gonzaga beats the other #1 seed Baylor in the championship – then, Joe Chapman will score just enough points to catch Gregg. Basically, Gregg needs one more upset to happen to win the upset pool.

For the Standard Pool, we obviously have a little bit more variety. But the fact that an 11 seed has crashed the party does narrow the field a little.

If UCLA wins, we name Gregg Farber both the Standard and Upset Pool winner. And he will completely deserve it for being the only person who would be daring enough to pick UCLA to win the entire tournament. I am not sure if Gregg picked UCLA because he is a super-fan of the team, he saw something the rest of the world didn’t as the Bruins were losing their last four games of the season, or if Gregg is a Michigan State fan and was so bummed that his Spartans lost in the First Four that he just didn’t bother to change his pick. Regardless of his reasons, it will be an incredible victory.

If Baylor wins, John Greene will be the champion. He would have done the best of the people who had the foresight to pick Baylor to beat Gonzaga. To be fair, thanks to our Los Angeles party crasher, he would have done the best of the people who simply picked Baylor to win – it doesn’t matter whether he gets the Gonzaga game right.

If the favorites win out, with Gonzaga beating Baylor, Kelly Woods will be the champion. However, if Gonzaga beats Houston, Emily Schumaker and Kevin Bostic will tie for the lead thanks to the extra points the Cougars will get them in the semi-finals.

If Houston can surprise both Baylor and Gonzaga, Jocelyn Knox will be the champion. However, if UCLA can pull one more gigantic upset and end Gonzaga’s undefeated season before losing to Houston in the final, our UCLA fan, Gregg Farber will manage to tie Jocelyn for the championship.

In the Second Chance Pool, half of the scenarios are owned by my wonderful wife, Elizabeth. For her, it really comes down to one game. If Houston can beat Baylor on Saturday, she gets enough points to win the Second Chance Pool. Since no one picked appears to have picked Houston or UCLA to win, while she might be happier if her final picks of Gonzaga staying undefeated against Houston happen, she simply needs the Cougars to win one more game.

Since no one backed the Bruins, a similar thing happens if Baylor wins the championship. It won’t matter if they beat Gonzaga or UCLA in the final, Sarah Ahles and Chris Kelly will tie for the Second Chance Pool victory – as they have done best of those picking Baylor to beat Gonzaga (or anyone else).

Kennedy Urban is rooting the favorites to win. Kennedy wins the Second Chance Pool if Gonzaga beats Baylor on Monday. But Kennedy has another way to win. If UCLA beats Baylor in the Championship game, Kennedy will tie for the Second Chance Pool victory with Tom Forrest – who had Michigan beating Baylor.

So – those are our unofficial leaders. Regardless of if you are rooting to place in the pools, rooting for your favorite team to win, or rooting for the underdogs to continue to cause havoc in the tournament, it should be a fantastic set of games to end the season. Good luck to everyone!!!!!

The college basketball world was hit with a shockwave today as Roy Williams retired from North Carolina as their head coach. Williams was the only coach in history to win 400 or more games at two different schools – he led Kansas to 418 wins over 15 seasons, and led North Carolina to 485 wins over 18 seasons. All in all, he went 903-264 (for a 77.4% career winning percentage), coached in nine Final Fours and won 3 National Championships. He is also the coach who took the least amount of games to get to 900 wins. If I am reading the record books correctly, only Mike Krzyzewski and Jim Boeheim have more wins at Division 1 schools.

Roy Williams said in today’s press conference that the last few seasons, he wasn’t able to prepare his players like he had in the past.

“I love coaching, working with kids on the court and in the locker room…I will always love that and I’m scared to death of the next phase, but I no longer feel like I’m the right man.”

It still jumps out to me that he coached in 9 Final Fours over 33 years. If you take a look at his freshman classes who stayed with him for 4 years, only 5 of his 15 classes at Kansas never got to compete in a Final 4, only 2 never got to compete in an Elite 8 and all of them at least made it to a Sweet 16. At North Carolina, only 7 of his 18 classes never got to compete in a Final 4, only his last 4 freshman classes never played in a Elite 8 and only the last two years (of which one year the tournament was cancelled) did not play in a Sweet 16.

Lets put this into perspective. If you look at the last 5 years (4 tournaments), only 39 of the 357 Division 1 schools played in a Sweet 16. So, something that only about 11% of the schools can claim they did that feat with their current senior class, Williams did this for every single one of his 31 senior classes – only the freshman and sophomores on his current team haven’t made it yet.

Only 9 schools in their entire history have played in 19 Sweet 16s – the same amount as Roy Williams has coached in (and obviously, two of those nine are UNC and Kansas). That number drops to 7 if you look at Final Fours. If we gave Roy Williams his own arena with banners in the air, he would have more Final Four banners than Indiana’s Assembly Hall (which has 8) and more Championship banners than Michigan State’s Breslin Center and Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center (which both have 2).

An amazing Hall of Fame career ended today, opening up one of the premier jobs in all of college basketball. I am sad to see this legend leaving the game. I also feel a little bad for whoever becomes the next head coach at North Carolina – because while it would be a dream job for almost anyone who coaches basketball, it will be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to have the same level of success as Roy Williams.

What an incredible Final 4 we have on Saturday.  We have Gonzaga, who is beating everyone they play by double digits.  We have Baylor, who have started to play amazing basketball again – with only a couple of late season losses as blemishes on their record.  We have Houston, who has a defense that is stopping everyone they play against.  And you have UCLA, the surprise team who has become the 2nd team in history to go from the First 4 games to the Final 4.  So excited for the games!!!!!

I am sure that there are other people excited about the games – our fourth round leaders.  This is now a critical time in the tournament as people have hopefully put themselves in position to win if their predicted champion does.

Our leader in the Standard Pool is Kelly Woods – who managed to get 3 of the Final 4 teams (Gonzaga, Baylor and Houston) right to earn 850 points.  She is closely followed by Joe Haggerty and John Greene – who are in a tie for 2nd just 40 points behind.  The rest of the top 10 (Adam Davis in 5th at 780 pts, Emily Schumaker and Kevin Bostic in 6th at 770 pts, Gregg Farber and Hailey Peterson in 8th at 760 pts. and Kelly Woods’ second bracket and Joe Chapman in 10th at 750 pts) can catch up if they get a Final 4 game correct that Kelly does not.

In the Upset Pool, our leader is Gregg Farber – whose bold pick of UCLA winning the National Championship has paid off by giving him 269 points in the upset pool.  He is followed by Joe Chapman at 256, Ryan Callahan at 247, Hailey Peterson at 237, Adam Davis at 235 and Amy Hattaway at 231.

In the Second Chance Pool, my wonderful wife Elizabeth got all 4 of the Final 4 correct to lead at 600 pts.  She is followed by Tom Forrest and Kennedy Urban at 520 pts, and 12 people at 480 pts.

There might only be 3 more games left in the tournament – but with 120 points for the semi-finals and 160 points for the champion, there is still time for some of you to catch the leaders and make it into the prize pool.  Well that is assuming you are not the Lunatic, who is totally being stomped in a tie for 170th place.  

Good luck to everyone over the weekend and on Monday night, as we crown the 2021 National Champion!!!!!

The Pac 12 is still alive. Many said that UCLA might not make it into the tournament thanks to a rough finish of the season by losing their last three before also losing to Oregon State in the Pac 12 tournament. But they made it into the First 4 – where they survived in overtime against Michigan State.

It wasn’t pretty, but UCLA’s defense has now led them into the Final 4. Michigan missed their last 8 shots from the field – including an exciting last two possessions.

With 20 seconds left in the game, they got the ball to Franz Wagner at the top of the key. But Wagner’s shot was an airball, and luckily fell into the arms of Eli Brooks underneath the basket. But Brooks rushed the layup and missed – and the Bruins’ Jules Bernard got the rebound.

Michigan fouled to extend the game – but UCLA got the ball into their leading scorer Johnny Juzang. The 91% free throw shooter made the first half of the one-and-one. But he missed the second setting up the final sequence.

Mike Smith charged the ball down the court to get a three-pointer off, but it missed and went off UCLA with 0.5 seconds. The Wolverines got one more chance – getting the ball into Wagner, but he was well guarded by the Bruins and the Wolverines last chance three-pointer would harmlessly fall off the backboard. UCLA won the defensive battle 51-49 and knocked off the Big 10 regular season champions.

Johnny Juzang scored 28 points, including an impressive drive to the basket with a minute left to give UCLA a 50-47 lead. The rest of UCLA was 10 of 35 from the field, but Juzang hit 11 of 19 to lead the Bruins to the Final Four.

So we have the battle for Texas with Houston and Baylor, and the battle for the West Coast with Gonzaga and UCLA. Should be a great Final Four on Saturday!!!!!

Congratulations to the UCLA Bruins!!!!

There is really not much to blog about. Gonzaga appears to be unstoppable. They completely destroyed USC 85-66, and truth be told, they took their foot off the gas for the last 4 minutes of the game – taking the clock down for the full 30 seconds most possessions.

Apparently, I missed most of the excitement. Charlie had an orthodontist appointment today and his mouth was sore – so we decided after dinner to get him ice cream from Sonic to make him feel better. I was sitting at the Sonic and just listening to the game on the March Madness app – and listening to Gonzaga score at will. And then the scary moment – official Bert Smith collapsed on the sideline. In a way, I am glad I didn’t see it – I was extremely nervous for him while I drove home with the announcers saying they were still tending to him and so they were going to commercial.

Fortunately, the reports I am reading say that he was feeling light-headed and being tended to at the stadium, but he was stable and did not need to go to the hospital. Very thankful that he was ok.

Anyways, by the time I got back home and we got everyone their ice cream and I sat down on the couch, I looked at my phone and could see the score was Gonzaga 23, USC 8. I didn’t even make Katie turn off Descendents 3 on the TV. I knew the game was already over – you simply go to get ice cream and miss the first 8 minutes of the game (well not completely, I listened to the dominance), and you have missed everything.

A point to make about how good Gonzaga is. If you look at the KenPom adjusted statistics, USC had the 4th best adjusted defense in the country. Gonzaga scored 49 points on them in the first half. They took one of the best defenses in the country, and just scored at will on them. The game never got close. At one point, USC scored to make it a 17 point lead, and the announcer said, it is hard to realize it, but the Trojans are actually playing much better basketball in the second half – but no matter what they do, Gonzaga won’t let them chip away at the lead.

Gonzaga is now 30-0. In 29 of those 30 victories, they have won the game by double digits. The closest anyone has gotten to them in the tournament is Oklahoma – who lost by 16. In the regular season, those double digit victories included games against 2 seed Iowa, 3 seed Kansas and 4 seed Virginia. I do think that they might be one of the best teams that I have ever seen.

You never know what March will bring. There is a reason we haven’t had an undefeated team since Indiana did it 1976. The pressure for perfection can be amazing. But for the moment, the West Coast Conference Champions have met every challenge they have faced this season – and that has earned them a well-deserved spot in the 2021 Final Four. Congratulations to the Gonzaga Bulldogs!

Baylor jumped out to a large lead early, and then held off a really tough Arkansas Razorbacks team. In the first half, it didn’t look like Baylor could miss. Yet, Arkansas somehow kept in the game – only down 46-38 at halftime.

But for a team that was so strong offensively, one of the big stories is the defense that Baylor played in the second half. There was an 8 minute stretch towards the end of the game where the Razorbacks didn’t score a single point from the field – just 6 free throws. During that 8 minute stretch – they extended their 4 point lead to 10. And strangely, Arkansas didn’t really try to extend the game by fouling.

So, congratulations to the Baylor Bears – the regular season champion of the Big 12! It is good to see that the Bears have managed to survive the Lunatic Curse to make the Final Four – especially since they have been one of the top 3 teams in the country the entire season. They will play Houston in a battle for Texas – with the winner getting the chance to play for the national championship.

I have to say that my imaginary handicapping is not going well. But the Houston / Oregon State game really reminded me of why I made the decision to no longer bet on the games.

As I was watching the game as someone who had nothing real on the game, I could simply enjoy the game. But the end of it made me have flashbacks. I also know that my handicapping page must be imaginary – because I ended up on the right side of the chaos for a change.

My guess is this is not the case thanks to Covid – but imagine a full Vegas Sportsbook with a huge crowd watching the game. Some might be watching as fans – but most are watching because they have bets on the game. And here are some important numbers. Houston was an 8 point favorite, and the over/under was set at 129.

For the record, I had Oregon State and the 8 points, and the under. With 21 seconds, Oregon State hit a layup to make the score 64-58. Houston gets the ball in and immediately gets trapped in the corner. Out of desperation, the ball gets thrown down the court and Houston’s Justin Gorham gets to the ball first. Maurice Calloo from Oregon State reached to foul him and knocked Gorham to the ground. And the official called an intentional foul.

And I could hear in that imaginary sportsbook the screams. Because the intentional foul would not only give Houston the chance to get the lead to the 8 point spread, but they would keep the ball!!!! I can hear the cheers of those with Oregon State bet slips as Gorham missed the second free throw to keep the game a 7 point game. But everyone knows what is coming next – the next foul.

This time Gorham makes both free throws and now the cheers from the Houston supporters start screaming as their bet slip is now winning. As long as Oregon State doesn’t score in the last 10 seconds, they now win.

And of course, Oregon State rushes down the field, get the ball to Maurice Calloo and he throws up a heavily guarded desperation three-pointer. And it goes in!!!! The Sportsbook goes crazy on the Oregon State side of the room as the lead is back to 6 points. Meanwhile, there is a lot more screaming happening! That is because there is still 3.7 seconds left. And that three-pointer just made the score 67-61. And so those with the under at 129 are furious. They now only have 1 point of a cushion and you have to figure Oregon State will foul to extend the game.

Houston passed the ball in after the time-out, two Oregon State players trap the Cougar in the corner to try to force a turnover, and I can hear it in the Sportsbook! FOUL HIM!!! WHY ARE YOU NOT FOULING HIM!!!!! PLEASE FOUL HIM!!!!! The Beavers knowing they could not score 7-8 points in 3 seconds tried to quickly force the turnover and then gracefully gave up.

People with Houston slips are screaming in agony as they rip up their tickets without getting the free throws to have a chance to tie the line. People with the over slips are screaming in agony as the rip up their slips frustrated by the shocking ending. And those with the under or Oregon State +8 are screaming for joy as they walk to the window to collect their winning and likely bet on the Baylor / Arkansas game.

In a period of 20 seconds, an entire Sportsbook is going crazy as the lead goes from 6 to 7 to 9 and back to 6, and stops 1 point short of getting to the over/under line.

I miss the excitement of a Vegas sportsbook. I don’t miss being the person who tended to be screaming while ripping up my bet slip.