Stomp The Lunatic

That was just crazy. Texas kept turning the ball over each time down the court. Then, they kept stopping Abilene Christian on the other side of the court.

So, with about a minute left in the game, Andrew Jones from Texas drives to the basket and gets fouled. Jones hit both free throws to make it 51-49.

Abilene Christian tried draining the clock – which led to Reggie Miller having to drive to the basket to try to beat the shot clock – instead, he loses control of the ball out-of-bounds and it is Texas ball.

Texas comes down the field, Matt Coleman III drives towards the basket, and passes the ball out to Jones on the wing, who hits a big-time three-pointer to give the Longhorns the lead with just 16 seconds.

Abilene Christian has one more chance – where Damian Daniels drives down the lane but with 2 seconds his shot gets blocked from behind by Kai Jones. Unfortunately, for Texas, the ball gets blocked hard off the backboard and into the hands of Abilene Christian’s Joe Pleasant – who gets fouled as he tried to go back up for the basket.

The junior normally shoots 58.8% from the free throw line, but with the game on the line, Pleasant calmly hits both free throws, Texas’s desparation in-bounds pass gets stolen, and Abilene Christian allows the 14 seeds to have someone to crash the second round party.

It wasn’t pretty. The Wildcats only hit 29.9% of their shots from the field. They were 3-18 from three-point range. They only scored 53 points. But they also forced Texas into committing 23 turnovers. That defense has sent Abilene Christian to the second round, and has finally delivered the first loss to the Big 12.

I am so sorry, BYU fans – but the Lunatic curse is complete. Sure, I was only picking you through one round. But everyone knows what happens when the Lunatic makes a late change to his picks and second guesses himself. That is a sure sign he is making a mistake.

And after a day of the chalk ruling the day, the evening has gone back to upsets. #11 UCLA joins #10 Maryland and #13 Ohio. And currently, with 8 minutes left, #14 seed Abilene Christian is up 43-40 on Texas. Maybe it isn’t too late for a 14 seed to join the second round. Will Abilene Christian be responsible for finally giving the Big 12 their first loss in the tournament. Only time will tell……

On Friday, I mentioned that I was changing my pick to BYU since UCLA star player Johnny Juzang went down with a pretty scary right ankle sprain – and it looked like there was a good chance that the Bruins leading scorer would not play.

I thought to myself that typically a First Four team wins – and UCLA was clearly the best of the 4 winners. I had originally assumed Michigan State would win that game and had picked them to beat BYU. After the upset, I thought to myself that UCLA played well enough that they could also beat BYU. And then the news came Friday morning that it was still unclear that Juzang would play.

Sometimes having all this information isn’t a good thing. I made the rational decision that without their top scorer, they would be a shell of their team. Of course, we have seen what has happened in the first half.

Johnny Juzang has played – and has scored 19 of the Bruins 38 points on way to a 38-27 halftime lead. I am sorry to all BYU fans out there. The Lunatic did not think about how his abilities could hurt a team’s chances.

As I was writing my last post about Ohio and Maryland, my phone buzzed with an alert. I glanced over to my phone on my desk to see this:

That is right – the March Madness App actually notified me that the Oregon vs VCU game was close at 1-0, and I should click to watch now.

Because hearing that the local team had to forfeit the game due to multiple positive COVID tests isn’t hard enough – we should ask their fans to open the app to watch the game that isn’t being played!!!!!

The first 8 games of the day have all gone to the favorites. And Iowa kicked off the evening games comfortably ahead of Grand Canyon. So, it was questionable if anyone would stop the chalk from advancing today.

Fortunately, the other double digit seeds playing tonight had other plans (well, at least for those of us rooting for the underdog to win). I hate to admit it, but after watching Purdue go down, I am kind of in the “misery loves company” phase of my recovery.

Ohio and Maryland were happy to help. First, Ohio managed to take the lead with about 7 minutes to play against Virginia as Ben Vander Plas hit two three pointers to put the Bobcats up 45-40. Virginia made a late run – as Jay Huff made a couple of baskets around the rim and Trey Murphy III hit a three to cut the lead late to 2. But Ohio stayed calm and Mark Sears and Lunden McDay hit both of their free throws to help keep Ohio ahead for a 62-58 win. It is a little a shame for Virginia – you have to wonder how much testing positive for COVID during the ACC Tournament and having to not arrive in Indy until Friday influenced them. That being said, you can’t take anything away from the MAC Tournament Champion – they played a strong game.

Maryland was more of a start-to-finish type thing. The Terrapins jumped out to a 33-22 lead at halftime against Connecticut and never really looked back. The Huskies did get the lead to as close as 5 with about 3 minutes to play, but Maryland hit 4 consecutive free throws to make sure Connecticut never got close – on way to the 63-54 victory.

So, Saturday finally saw an underdog win – #13 Ohio and #10 Maryland advance. UCLA has started off ahead of BYU – but it is early. That being said, I have completely jinxed the Cougars by changing my pick to them – so that probably bodes poorly for them.

But did it need to happen to the local team?

VCU becomes the first team to get eliminated from NCAA tournament due to COVID protocols.

The statement from the NCAA:

“The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee has declared the VCU-Oregon game scheduled for Saturday night at Indiana Farmers Coliseum a no-contest because of COVID-19 protocols,” the NCAA’s statement read. “This decision was made in consultation with the Marion County Public Health Department.

“As a result, Oregon will advance to the next round of the tournament. The NCAA and the committee regret that VCU’s student-athletes and coaching staff will not be able to play in a tournament in which they earned the right to participate. Because of privacy issues we cannot provide further details.”

Really sad to hear that the VCU Rams season ended this way. I keep looking to see if I can find out anything else – but I guess the only thing that matters is the season is over for the Rams.

UC Santa Barbara found themselves in the position you want to be. Amadou Sou had just hit two free throws and gave the Gauchos a 1 point lead. Creighton came down and missed the shot, but Christian Bishop got the offensive rebound for the Bluejays, and then as he tried to pass the ball outside to setup another chance, UCSB reached in and was called for a foul.

So, the 6-7 junior forward who has shot 57% from the line all season steps up to the line to shoot the one-and-one free throw that will determine his team’s season. And calmly drills the first free throw. And calmly drills the second free throw. The Blue Jays have re-taken the lead.

UCSB has one more chance – they come down the field and make a great pass into the lane to Sou, who goes up for the heavily guarded layup. He draws a little contact from the smaller defender as he steps to the basket (who to be fair, looked like he had position so a good no-call), shoots the ball, and watches as it hits the back of the rim and bounces out.

Creighton survives and advances on what appears to continue to be Chalk Day.

It is not an uncommon event in the tournament. On one day, everyone is excited about the tournament, while favorites go into game and don’t expect that the Summit League champion is going to knock them off – they are used to playing against top 10 teams, so they certainly won’t lose to a team like Oral Roberts. And then, the first Cinderella team wins. And the next – and soon there is carnage everywhere in the bracket.

Then the next day comes, and every protected seed comes out determined to not be the next Ohio State. And the chalk starts winning and winning and winning.

Colorado crushes Georgetown

Florida State lets UNC-Greensboro hang around, but eventually wins by 10.

Kansas lets Eastern Washington jump out to a double digit lead before storming back in the second half.

Michigan isn’t winning by 25 points like the spread – but Texas Southern really hasn’t been close enough to make the Wolverines concerned.

Even the 8 seed got into the action as LSU dominated St. Bonaventure.

There is still opportunity for upsets, Alabama / Iona, Creighton / UCSB and USC / Drake all find themselves in games within 1 point. So – should at least be a little more exciting than the first 4 games. But it seems like the chalk is trying to not allow the Madness to escape today.

Remember how I mentioned that only the 14 seed and 16 seed didn’t get a win on Friday. Eastern Washington is trying to remedy that situation.

The 14-seeded Eagles have a 46-38 lead at halftime over the Kansas Jayhawks. There is obviously a lot of basketball still to be played – but Saturday’s first upset alert is here.

I am also having a little bit of deja-vu. They just mentioned as talking about the possible upset that Eastern Washington has never won a NCAA Tournament game. So, a team that has never won a tournament game has taken an 8 point halftime lead against a heavily favored team. I am sure that it is just coincidental that North Texas had never won a tournament game before last night, and that they started off with an 8 point lead against the Boilers.

It could be that I just can’t erase that game from my mind…… Maybe this just is creating unnecessary fear for Kansas Jayhawks’ fans. But at the end of the day, being down 8 should probably create some fear!!!!

Colorado and Georgetown are about to tip-off in a classic 5/12 seed game. What a great way to start Saturday.

Saturday will have a tough expectations to hold up thanks to Friday’s games. From what I heard, Friday was the first time that 14 of the 16 seeds had at least one winner in a single day.

We had upsets by #9 Wisconsin, #10 Rutgers, #11 Syracuse, #12 Oregon State, #13 North Texas and #15 Oral Roberts!!!! That’s right – only 10 of the 16 favorites won their games on Friday – and if you remove the top 3 seeds, the favorites were successful at a true coin flip.

We had 3 games go to overtime! We had other double digit seeds like Winthrop, Liberty, Cleveland State and Morehead State all keep the games close for a while.

If your team is an underdog – keep the faith!!!! It appears anything can happen. If your team is a favorite – fear everyone!!!!! Everything looks like it will be a battle!!!!

But should we expect anything less – we are playing for a national championship!!!! So, the expectations for today are high! And yet, whatever happens – we can probably count on one thing. March Madness will be AWESOME!!!!!! Enjoy the games!