Stomp The Lunatic

Well, that was certainly very interesting. Who of us had Houston jumping out to a 17 point, Oregon State coming all the way back to tie the game with 4 minutes left, just to watch Houston win in the final 4 minutes.

You have to give the Beavers an amazing amount of credit for coming back from down 17 points. But on the next possession after Gianni Hunt’s three-pointer tied the game at 55, Quentin Grimes drilled a three-pointer to answer and give the Cougars back the lead. That was the last time Houston would score from the field. But they would get 9 more points from the line to seal the game.

Part of the reason for that is the Cougars amazing ability to get offensive rebounds. After Oregon State’s Ethan Thompson hit a free throw to make it a two point game, Houston’s Grimes missed a three-pointer but Fabian White got the offensive rebound. Then, DeJon Jarreau missed a three-pointer, only for Grimes to chase the ball down in the corner and get fouled. He would hit both free throws to increase the lead to 4.

After their strong defense caused the Beavers to miss a three-pointer, they had a similar sequence where Grimes missed a jumper just for Justin Gorham to get the offensive rebound. Then, Gorham missed his shot just for Fabian White Jr to get the offensive rebound and get fouled. He missed the free throw, but it wouldn’t matter.

Once again, Houston’s strong defense forced a missed three-pointer, they would get the ball to Gorham near the basket where he would get fouled. This time, he would only hit one of the free throws to make it a 5 point game.

With under a minute to play, Oregon State desperately needed a basket, but unfortunately, Ethan Thompson would trip and get tied up by the Houston defense. And at this point, it turned into the classic foul to extend the game. Houston hit their free throws, and won 67-61.

I was really impressed in the Syracuse game about their defense – holding the Orange to 46 points. But their offensive rebounding ability is equally impressive. The Cougars got 19 offensive rebounds in this game – and many of those offensive rebounds led to Houston eventually scoring.

Congratulations to the Houston Cougars! They were the champions of the American Athletic Conference Tournament, and now they are the first team to be playing in the Final Four!

With Houston and Oregon State getting ready to tip off and start the Elite 8, we should make sure that we spent a moment to recognize our current leaders!!!!  

In the Standard Pool, our leader is Adam Davis – with a very impressive 620 points.  But it is still a close race.  Kelly Woods not only is in 2nd place with 610 points, but Kelly’s second bracket is in a 3rd place tie at 590 points with Ryan Callahan and TJ Acuto.  In 6th place is Mark Walsh at 580 points, and there is a large tie for 7th place at 570 points between Don Berglund, Kevin Busby, Heath Lindvall, Audra Chamowitz, Joe Haggerty and John Greene.  

In the Upset Pool, Ryan Callahan leads with 243 points.  Our Standard Pool leader, Adam is in 2nd place with 227 points.    They are followed closely by TJ Acuto (224 pts), Amy Hattaway (219 pts) and Gregg Farber (213 pts).

In the 2nd Chance Pool, my wonderful amazing wife Elizabeth got 7 of 8 Sweet 16 picks correct along with Kennedy Urban and an entry for someone calling themselves Big Ten Rules.  Their 280 points puts them 40 points ahead of the 27 people who correctly got 6 of the 8 Sweet 16 games right to be at 240 points.

We also need to congratulate Kyle Kelly, who appears to have won the consolation prize for finishing last in the Standard Pool.  My picks are so bad I can’t say my normal catch phrase of not challenging the Lunatic (I am sadly in a tie for 239th place) – especially not to someone who was a past champion.  I guess we have to say that Kyle shouldn’t have challenged Adam, Kelly, Ryan and TJ this year.

Big movement can happen in the Elite 8 – 80 points can certainly move you up the standings fast (assuming you are lucky enough to still have your Final 4 picks playing over the next 2 days).  So, enjoy the games!!!!

Well – there was no exciting comeback this time. USC jumped out to a 15 point halftime lead, and didn’t look back as the finished off the Oregon Ducks 82-68.

So, we have 3 Pac 12 teams joining three one seeds (Gonzaga, Michigan and Baylor), a two seed (Houston) and a three seed (Arkansas) playing in the Elite 8 on Monday and Tuesday.

Games start a little after 7 pm – should be a good couple of nights of basketball!!!

The Lunatic curse managed to eventually end the run for the SEC champion. Well – lets be fair, the Lunatic enjoys his magical powers – but they are imaginary. The players can’t really know that I have picked them and perform poorly. This game had a lot in it.

UCLA had an 11 point lead at halftime, but Alabama quickly erased that by scoring the first 11 points of the second half. UCLA would go on a run to bring the lead back out to 7 – but Alabama would make a run to tie the game. And the Crimson Tide found themselves with a 1 point lead and the ball with 2 minutes to play.

Then, they were ruined by replay. Alabama along the sideline was dribbling the ball and it hit the foot of the UCLA player and went through the legs of the Alabama player. It was originally called Alabama ball – but it was overturned because the referees saw the ball slightly touch the Alabama player’s shorts before going out of bounds. And to be very clear, the replay showed the ball brushed the shorts – it did not actually hit the actual leg of the player.

But that was enough. The announcers mentioned that there was no way a referee could have seen that in real-time. And they are right…. We could argue whether or not the shorts should be considered part of the player – I assume the rules say that is the case. But why wasn’t it a kicked ball. I am not saying that it was a really bad call to overturn it – just saying I have questions…..

Then after a defensive stop, Alabama got the ball down to Juwan Gary under the basket – but his shot was blocked by Cody Riley. To be fair, I think that Riley also blocked half of Gary’s arm which would have ended up out-of-bounds if it wasn’t attached to his body. In my mind, that was clearly a missed call.

Then again, it probably wouldn’t have mattered – Alabama would have missed the free throws. Free throws killed the Crimson Tide in this game. They went 11 for 23 from the line in regulation. Just hitting a couple of those would have completely changed how this game played. Although maybe not – if UCLA had to foul Alabama to extend the game, it is very unclear if the Tide would have hit the free throws…..

UCLA got fouled on their next possession (on a play that drew less contact than Gary’s blocked layup). Jaime Jaquez Jr hit one of the two free-throw to tie the game. Then, Alabama’s Herbert Jones hit a free-throw to take the lead back. And then UCLA with just 14 seconds in the game got it to Cody Riley who took it strong to the basket to give the Bruins the lead – setting the stage for a wild 14 seconds.

Herbert Jones got fouled and went to the free throw line. But the 73.8% free throw shooter missed both free throws so they had to foul. David Singleton hit both of the free throws to give the Bruins the 3 point lead with 4 seconds to play. And the announcers mention – this is big because Cronin tends to foul when up by 3.

People know my feelings about fouling when up 3 – I watched my Boilers lose thanks to that strategy in 2019. And it almost cost UCLA as well. Jahvon Quinerly brought the ball up the court, and the defense started converge on him to try to foul him. Instead, Quinerly passed the ball to Alex Reese – who was pretty open since the defender left him to foul Quinerly. And Reese calmly drilled the three-pointer from extremely deep to tie the game. Who knows – if they play straight up man, maybe Quinerly ends up making a desparation three-pointer instead. But in an attempt to try to foul, they stopped playing actual defense – and that gave Alabama a much better chance to tie the game.

Then again, it didn’t matter. The overtime was all UCLA. The Bruins outscored the Tide 23-13 in the overtime period, and a lot of the Tide’s points were just late drives as UCLA simply didn’t want to foul. I would say the pivotal moment came with 1:38 – when UCLA was up four points and Jaime Jaquez Jr hit a three-pointer before the shot clock went off to extend the lead to 7. The next two times down the court, Alabama stopped driving to the basket where they were scoring all their points and settled for toughly guarded three-point shots (which both missed). And by that point it was too late. Part of the reason is because unlike Alabama, UCLA was making their free throws. In the last 50 seconds of the game, UCLA made 11 of 12 free throws making it impossible for Alabama to cut into the lead.

And so the Bruins became the second Pac 12 team, and the second double-digit seed to make it to the Elite 8. They also became the second team since VCU did it to go from the First Four to the Elite 8. That VCU team made the Final Four – just saying……..

Alex Reese for Alabama hit a really long three-pointer at the buzzer to send the game to overtime. This has been such an exciting game!!!! Don’t want to miss the overtime so will blog later!

Oregon State has already earned their spot in the Elite 8. And with USC and Oregon playing in tonight’s Sweet 16 finale, they are guaranteed to have at least 2 teams playing for a chance to make it to the Final 4.

But UCLA would like to crash the party as well. The Bruins just ended the first half on a 20-6 run to take a 11 point lead at halftime against the #2 seed Alabama Crimson Tide. Add into the fact that Alabama has the Lunatic Curse against it since I have picked them to win the East Region, and suddenly, there is a very realistic chance that the conference which had their best ranked team as a 5 seed will have three teams in the Elite 8. And ironically, those teams would not involve that 5 seed (since Colorado was eliminated by Florida State).

Only 20 minutes will tell, if there will be two double digit seeds in the Elite 8 (of which both would be from the Pac 12)? Should be fun to watch for those of us just enjoying the basketball games. It is always stressful for the fan bases of the teams that are playing – with Alabama fans hoping for a run to get back into the game, and UCLA fans will be hoping that they hang on and don’t open the door for the 2 seed to come back.

It is not the prize that any of us want to win, but at the end of the day you get your entry fee back. My wonderful wife, Elizabeth, was fighting for it – but she needed a pretty miraculous day to create the tie. She started the day tied for last place with Kyle Kelly.

But Kyle had the advantage on her. That is because with Kyle picking Virginia, West Virginia, UConn, and UNC to make the Final 4 (and the other upsets he had picked), Kyle was already stuck at 170 points with no chances to score any more points.

Elizabeth started the day also with 170 points, but she had the possibility of getting more points if Gonzaga or Michigan won today. With Gonzaga’s blow-out victory, Mrs. Lunatic has moved up to 210 points, and left Kyle for the honor none of us want to have.

Of course, all of this is unofficial – I always do a check of the website to make sure the scores are right. But as of now, Kyle is in last – he should not have challenged the Lunatic.

Well – maybe that is not true. First of all, Kyle was our 2013 Stomp the Lunatic contest – he is normally very good at this – I suspect he simply got to aggressive with picking upsets. Also, the Lunatic isn’t doing very well. His best picks stand in a tie for 214th place. It is going to be a very thorough stomping, So, I guess we should take a look at the leaders for the yearly catch-phrase.

Kyle shouldn’t have challenged Adam Davis (our current leader at 580 points), or TJ Acuto and Ryan Callahan (who are in 2nd at 550 points).

Have to take a moment to recognize a special day. 18 years ago, on this day, my friends helped set up a blind date for me. They thought we had so much in common that we would be perfect for each other. We met at a Starbucks, had a nice dinner at Pasta Luna, the Italian restaurant next door, and then stopped for a drink at the Capital Ale House.

That wonderful night was when I met Elizabeth – and little did I know how much my life would change for the better that evening. And as I sit here for the second weekend in a row watching several basketball games all day and blogging about them, I know that I am extremely lucky to have found such a wonderful woman to be my wife.

I am so blessed to have such great friends and family. Elizabeth – I’ve found all I’ve waited for, and I could not ask for more.

Barring any massive surprise, the #1 team in the country will be heading to the Elite 8. Gonzaga is up 21 points with 2:43 left in the game.

They make it look effortless as they score points in runs. Creighton is certainly not a bad team – they made it to the Sweet 16. And yet, they are down 20+ points. It almost looked like whenever Gonzaga wanted to get a layup they could do it. Whenever they wanted a three-pointer, they would get a wide open one.

The Bulldogs clearly showed today why they are currently undefeated on the season – and it was done so effortlessly, it didn’t even look like they were playing their best basketball. They look extremely good – not sure who has the talent or firepower to stop them.

The tournament has amazing things happen – anything can happen in March. But right now, Gonzaga looks really good as they advance to the Elite 8 with an 83-65 victory.

There really isn’t much interesting to say on this game. Syracuse had just tied the game at 20 with about 5 minutes left in the first half. And then Houston finished the half scoring the last 10 points to take a 30-20 halftime lead.

And then, the Cougars never looked back. Much is made about how difficult it is to score against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone defense. But it was Houston’s man defense that was the story in this one. Syracuse had scored 70 or more points in 7 of their last 9 games, including both of their tournament games against San Diego State and West Virginia. But tonight, Syracuse scored 46 points. They shot only 28% from the field. There have been some good defensive performances tonight, but Houston shut down everyone on the Syracuse team.

So Houston advances to the Elite 8 to play #12 seed Oregon State. While I did not do any fact checking, I heard on the broadcast, that Houston will become the first team in tournament history to play 4 double digit seeds (#15 Cleveland State, #10 Rutgers, #11 Syracuse and now #12 Oregon State).

Congratulations to Baylor, Arkansas, Oregon State and Houston. 4 more teams will join them in the Elite 8 tomorrow!!!! Can’t wait for the next set of games.