Stomp The Lunatic

Thanks to Rose Brunner – you got me riled up again!!!!  Thus, you have earned your way into the blog (along with other innocents)!!!!

We all know that I am passionate about the tournament, and thus, while I understand the concerns, I so badly want the games to be played with the fans, the cheering, the insanity.  So, lets travel back in time to around 5:15 pm.

Here I was, innocently at work trying to get a couple more things done for my current project before heading home for the evening.  And sure enough, I hear my phone beep with a text.  Before I even have time to check, I hear my phone beep again – I thought it was just my phone telling me I was too slow.  But no.  My wonderful wife Elizabeth and Dave Zimmerman, my roommate from college text me the same breaking news – that the NCAA has announced the tournament will be played with no fans.

Seriously – it isn’t enough that I am turned into a crazy person during March.   But the NCAA couldn’t wait a couple hours until I was home from work to announce this.  They couldn’t announce it at lunch time when I could find out and get it out of my system.  No – they had to announce it while I was trying to finish something before I go home.  Now, here I am trying to be productive and all I can think about is basketball and sadly, the coronavirus.

Rose then came by to ask me a question, and of course, this means I have to drag her into my madness…..  How can i concentrate if I don’t get things off my chest.   Because this is completely unprecedented that the basketball tournament would be played without fans.  And it feels like panic.

And I get that this is a new virus causing people to be scared.  We don’t know how fatal it really is – partially because it is so much like a common flu or virus that people don’t report it.  We don’t know how bad it can get because with it being new, people do not have built-up immunities to it.  It is believed to have a mortality rate higher than the common flu, and so if it really ramps up, it could be bad and too late to stop.  People are scared because the media is 24/7 on this story telling us how bad it is.

Anyways, I finally got to the point where I realized that it was late and my chances of productivity were done.  I am so distracted that I might as well go home.  I decide to go home, write my blog post to get this off my mind and go get dinner – since Elizabeth and the kids were coming home from Charlie’s Rubik’s Cube tournament (Charlie and his school did great!).  I even enjoyed a little of the Minnesota / Northwestern game.

And then I get a text.  Rose needed to get me going again – and so she sent me this link:

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu

And now I am all riled up again!!!!!!  Because the article made one of my points from yesterday a little big more concrete (I will round some numbers – since all of you can obviously read the article that Rose found on this)…….

The coronavirus has a little over 120K cases world-wide, resulting in over 4K deaths.   In the US, there are 1K cases resulting in 29 deaths.

The flu has an estimated 1 billion cases world-wide, resulting in over 291K deaths per year.  In the US, they estimate over 9 million cases resulting in over 12K deaths.

Every death is a tragedy – so do not take this as me saying not to worry about the coronavirus.  But we have not closed major sporting events like the NCAA Tournament for a virus that is highly contagious that ends in death for 291K people per year.  But 4K deaths get caused by a new virus and we need to shut everything down (not just the NCAA Tournament) for the first time in history.   I get that the flu is the danger that we know, and the coronavirus is the danger that we do not know.  But there have been many dangerous diseases through the years, and I don’t ever remember this type of reaction.

Maybe it is the right decision to make – for the first time in history, instead of letting this spread, we are going to slow it down by not allowing large amounts of people to gather in the same place.  Maybe this will actually reduce the other viruses from spreading as well.  But the pessimist in me says that unless we all plan to lock ourselves in our homes for the next 2 months, all the viruses (coronavirus, flu, name your contagious disease) are going to continue to spread and people will continue to get sick – and tragedies will happen.

Thank you, Rose, for sending me this information and getting me riled up again.  Hopefully, this will get it out of my system so that I can focus back on bringing all of you pointless commentary about actual basketball.  I should be pulling box scores from the NCAA website.  I should be looking at NET rankings and team sheets figuring out the bubble.  I should be watching basketball games.  I should be thinking about building a quick and dirty model to predict the games that I will eventually not use because I won’t believe that School A will beat School B.  I should be sleeping so that I am not a total wreck next week.  I shouldn’t be reading articles about mortality rates, causes, treatments and prevention of diseases.

Oh – congratulations to Boston University – who managed to hang on at the end of the game to upset regular season champion Colgate 64-61 to claim the Patriot Conference Championship!   There, that feels better.  Basketball results to discuss.

Oh – and just to be on the safe side.   Please everyone – wash your hands!!!!!!!!

Or maybe they read my blog about being hypocritical.  Or maybe it is all just a coincidence.

First, the Ivy League has now announced they have cancelled all spring sports and is allowing teams playing currently to choose to forfeit the rest of their games (which the Cornell men’s hockey team decided to do for the ECAC game that I mentioned).  Have to give them a little more credit for at least being consistent – if you are going to cancel basketball, you might as well cancel everything else.  You could say they are being paranoid – but they are least being consistent.

Then, the NCAA announced that all men’s and women’s tournament games will be played with no fans – just limited family members and other essential individuals.  Looks like many of the conference tournaments are following suit (as I watch the Northwestern vs. Minnesota game, they just announced that the remainder of the Big 10 tournament will be without fans).

Mark Emmert said that he is going to look into moving the Final Four from Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium to a smaller arena.  Part of me hopes they don’t do this – if we are going to do this, then lets do it right.  No trying to cover up the empty arena by playing the game in a small arena.   Lets own it – we should have this massive football stadium that seats 71,000 people for the Atlanta Falcons’ home games with a small basketball court in the middle of it and the rest of it being completely empty.

I am sure I will end up blogging about this more – this story isn’t going away.  But I need to get my mind on better things than viruses killing all of us off.  Lets narrow down the bubble – well, after eating dinner……

I do have to admit – I am really impressed with the regular season champions.  While it makes sense that the team that wins the most games in the regular season would be the favorite to win the conference tournament.  But they typically still have to win three games.  So, that is why I am impressed with Tuesday’s results.

West Coast Conference – Champion Gonzaga is dominating St. Mary’s

NEC – Co-champ Robert Morris beat co-champ St. Francis PA (after the ineligible Merrimack)

Colonial – Champion Hofstra beat Northeastern

Summit – Co-Champion North Dakota St beat North Dakota

Horizon – 2nd seed Northern Kentucky beat UIC (who upset champ Wright State)

 

Vermont also advanced to the America East final, and Prairie View A&M advanced to the SWAC semi-finals

So, 7 teams that won a share of their conference regular season tonight, and 6 of them won.  And the only team who lost did it to the team they shared the conference regular season title with.

I have always had mixed feelings about the conference tournaments.  On one side, it basically gives every team a chance to play their way into the NCAA Championship Tournament.  On the other hand, small conference regular season champions have worked all season to be the best representative from the conference, only to have to prove it for 3-4 more games to keep their season alive.

Whether you agree or disagree with having the tournaments, what happened today is wrong for so many reasons.   While I can not be sure, I think this is the first time that a school has ever won an invitation to the tournament due to the fear of spreading a disease.

That’s right – the Ivy league has made the decision to cancel their men’s and women’s conference tournaments this week due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.  And so, Yale as the regular season champion has been declared the Ivy League champion that will win the bid to the dance.

This is wrong for so many reasons.  I do not want to dismiss any concerns about coronavirus – I understand people are nervous.  But there are a few reasons that I really disagree with this decision.

First of all, the flu also kills thousands of people each year, and I have never seen a conference cancel their tournament because there was a flu outbreak.  And there have been years where the flu has been pretty bad.

Maybe this strain of coronavirus is more dangerous than a typical virus.  But no one on the 4 teams playing in the Ivy league tournament to my knowledge has been diagnosed with the coronavirus – if they are worried about having lots of people in a stadium which risks spreading the disease, then simply play the games with no fans.  You can’t spread a disease if no one in the stadium has it, and unless someone is hiding something, no one from the Yale, Harvard, Princeton or Penn basketball teams have it.  I am sure that Harvard, Princeton and Penn would rather have a chance to win the tournament in an empty stadium that simply have their season end.

To add to this, the Ivy League announced it will limit spectators to all remaining sporting events for the year.  But those events are still going to play – including the NCAA quarterfinal for the Cornell women’s hockey team or the ECAC quarterfinal for the Cornell men’s hockey team.  Last time I checked, the coronavirus doesn’t have a special bias that would make it infect basketball players but not infect hockey players.  If those games can be played with no fans, why can’t the basketball games?

But lets say we are concerned about the risk of traveling for these athletes.  Then this is the most hypocritical piece of it.  If they are that concerned, than the Ivy League should be announcing that they are ending the seasons for all their league.  Instead, they are going to let the Yale players travel to the NCAA Tournament, to much larger stadiums that are in locations of the United States that have had more identified cases of the coronavirus than Massachusetts (the state announced an increase from 28 cases to 41 cases – prompting the cancellations).  What happens if Yale gets sent out to Spokane, Washington or Sacramento, California?  What happens if they pull a few upsets and make the regional final in Los Angeles or New York?  If there was this true level of concern for the athletes, the Ivy League would tell the NCAA they are not sending a representative.  Instead, they are removing the small risk for the Yale team now and exposing them for a much larger risk in a week.

I am not a public health expert – and so I can’t say how dangerous the coronavirus is.  But there were plenty of options that they could have continued to have this competition.

Consider this Part 2 of last night’s rant…..   This article has multiple purposes.  Most important purpose is to honor all the Regular Season Conference Champions – they deserve a chance to get some recognition, even if it is simply a place in the Lunatic’s Blog.  But it also is an opportunity to start to break down the bubble.  I will divide the teams into groups – based on which conference tournaments could have the possibility of bursting a bubble if the conference champion loses…..

Must win the conference championship – will not get any consideration for an at-large

Conf USA – North Texas (NET 96, 20-11, 14-4) – March 14th

WAC – New Mexico State (NET 105, 25-6, 16-0) – March 14th

Big West – UC-Irvine (NET 113, 21-11, 13-3) – March 14th

Patriot – Colgate (NET 115, 25-8, 14-4) – March 11th

Horizon – Wright State (NET 120, 25-6, 15-3) – March 10th (Editor’s Note – they are losing tonight in their semi-final to UIC by double digits – YIKES!)

Colonial – Hofstra (NET 122, 24-8, 14-4) – March 10th

Big Sky – Eastern Washington (NET 135, 23-8, 16-4) – March 14th

Summit – North Dakota State (NET 137, 23-8, 13-3) and South Dakota State (NET 129, 22-10, 13-3) – March 10th

Sun Belt – Ark – Little Rock (NET 141, 21-10, 15-5) – March 15th

MAAC – Siena (NET 155, 19-10, 15-5) – March 14th

SWAC – Prairie View A&M (NET 202, 18-13, 14-4) – March 14th

NEC – St. Francis PA (NET 173, 22-9, 13-5) and Robert Morris (NET 214, 19-14, 13-5) – March 10th    (special call-out at bottom of blog)

MEAC – NC Central (NET 257, 17-13, 13-3) – March 14th

Must win the conference championship – but since at least one bubble team with an RPI between 50 and 80 will get in, it feels like we should say they will get considered for an at-large bid.  History says they will not…..

Ivy – Yale (NET 70, 23-7, 11-3) – March 15th

MAC – Akron (NET 74, 24-7, 14-4) – March 14th

Southland – Stephen F Austin (NET 77, 28-3, 19-1) – March 14th

America East – Vermont (NET 79, 25-7, 14-2) – March 14th

Lost their conference tournament but is in the NET Top 50 – they will at least get considered…..

Missouri Valley – Northern Iowa (NET 48, 14-4, 25-6) – BRADLEY won tourney

PLAYING RIGHT NOW – In the NET Top 50 – a bubble will burst if ETSU lose – but hopefully that bubble wouldn’t have been ETSU.  Well, hopefully, they will win and we won’t have to ever find out……

Southern – East Tennessee State (NET 39, 29-4, 16-2)

WON THEIR TOURNEY CHAMPIONSHIP

Atlantic Sun – Liberty (NET 68, 30-4, 13-3) – special note….  the NCAA shows the current and previous NET ranking.  Liberty’s ranking went from 64th to 68th thanks to winning their conference tournament…….  That just doesn’t seem right……..  So, I had to check, three teams that passed Liberty this week while the Flames were winning 3 games were St. John’s (who lost at Butler by 22), Syracuse (who lost at Miami in OT) and Tennessee (who lost by 22 at HOME to Auburn).  So the Flames got passed by two teams that lost by over 20 points to potential tournament teams and one who lost to a team who likely won’t make the tournament – while all they did was win three games to claim their conference championship.   Sure – Auburn and Butler (and even Miami) are better teams than Liberty beat in the Atlantic Sun tournament.   But I am pretty sure that if you gave the Flames a chance to play Butler or Auburn, they could at least not lose by more than 22 points……  Have to say – that still doesn’t seem right – it is the truth, but doesn’t seem right……

OVC – Belmont (NET 101, 26-7, 15-3)  – beat co-champion Murray State (NET 134, 23-9, 15-3)

Big South – Winthrop (NET 146, 24-10, 15-3) – co-champion Radford lost before the championship game (NET 184, 21-11, 15-3)

BUBBLE GOT SEMI-BURST

Mountain West – San Diego State (NET 4, 30-2, 17-1) – lost to Utah State in the championship.  San Diego State is a lock to make it – Utah State was on the bubble but now they don’t need to worry (someone else does….)

REMAINING SMALL CONFERENCE LOCKS – these conferences will take a spot away from the bubble since at least the top team is a lock to make the tournament

American – Houston (NET 20, 23-8, 13-5), Cincinnati (NET 51, 20-10, 13-5) and Tulsa (NET 78, 21-10, 13-5).  Houston has the type of profile (top 25 NET and in the AP/Coaches Top 25) to survive a loss (although they might get a little uncomfortable if that lost is in the quarterfinals). – March 15th

West Coast – Gonzaga (NET 2, 29-2, 15-1).  Bubble bursts if Gonzaga or BYU doesn’t win.  St. Mary’s is on the bubble and would love to upset BYU and Gonzaga so they don’t have to sweat out Selection Sunday. – March 10th

Atlantic 10 – Dayton (NET 3, 29-2, 18-0).  Richmond is clearly on the bubble – but since they are so close to the cut line, you have to figure anyone outside of Dayton winning is making the bubble smaller. – March 15th

MAJOR CONFERENCES – many others from these conferences could win without reducing the true bubble, but these conference champs are all locks.  And while the point was to recognize the small conference champs, it feels awkward not to give these champs their praise as well.

Big 12 – Kansas (NET 1, 28-3, 17-1) – March 14th

ACC – Florida State (NET 10, 26-5, 16-4) – March 14th

Big East – Creighton (NET 11, 24-7, 13-5), Villanova (NET 13, 24-7, 13-5) and Seton Hal (NET 15, 21-9, 13-5) – March 14th

Pac 12 – Oregon (NET 12, 24-7, 13-5) – March 14th

SEC – Kentucky (NET 21, 25-6, 15-3) – March 15th….   Have to add not sure how the 7th/8th team in the country (depending on if you agree with the Coaches or the AP) has a NET ranking of 21st…  Suspect it has to do with losing to Evansville in the first game of the season – of which if that is the case, it is kind of sad……

Big 10 – Wisconsin (NET 24, 21-10, 14-6), Michigan State (NET 7, 22-9, 14-6), and Maryland (NET 18, 24-7, 14-6) – March 15th

SPECIAL CALLOUT IN THE NORTHEAST CONFERENCE

The actual conference champion in the NEC was Merrimack (NET 217, 20-11, 14-4).  But because of the NCAA rules around schools transitioning to Division 1, Merrimack isn’t eligible to play in the NCAA Tournament, and thus, won’t be playing in the NEC conference tournament championship.  However, Merrimack deserves to be on this list – it is truly incredible to be in your first season in Division 1 basketball and end up finishing as the outright regular season champion.  Sadly, they have to hope that the CBI or CIT will invite them since they are ineligible for the two bigger NCAA-run tournaments.

And while I don’t want to jinx it, right now, East Tennessee State looks like they are going to lock up their bid as they have a 68-54 lead over Wofford with 1 minute and 37 seconds left.  That will be good for the bubble, but even better for East Tennessee State – a 29/30 win team deserves to be dancing in March!

 

So – there you go!  All the regular season champions got some recognition (hopefully, I didn’t forget someone as I was typing).  And you get a Championship Week viewing guide – when championship games will be, which conferences might impact the bubble, which teams to root for simply because they deserve to dance and winning their tournament is the only way that will happen…..  It should be a great week of basketball!!!!   As for tonight, I am going to work further on my bracketology strategy – and maybe watch a little of the West Coast semi-finals.  Gonzaga is playing next (although would have preferred to see BYU / St. Mary’s).  Don’t think it is a good idea to stay up for the 11:30 pm EST start time – that seems like creating sleep deprivation that isn’t necessary as much as I would like to watch.

 

 

Imagine the following scenario…..Next week, Big 10 regular season co-champions Wisconsin and Michigan State (or Maryland – remember this is simply a hypothetical, so I picked the top 2 seeds.  Nothing against the Terps…..) survive the gauntlet of the Big 10 tournament to reach the final.  In an amazingly entertaining game that goes back and forth, the Badgers find themselves down 1 with 11 seconds to play, come down the court, and make a last second shot for a 1 point victory over the Spartans.  And as Wisconsin celebrates at mid-court for their championship and invitation to the NCAA tournament, Michigan State players sadly walk off the court knowing that after an amazing season, they will probably not even be heading to the NIT…….

Of course that is ridiculous.  Because we all know that a 24-10 Big 10 co-champion would certainly get an at-large bid from the committee, especially after losing in a thrilling buzzer beater.

However, lets change the name – and no longer deal with hypothetical.  The conference name is now the Ohio Valley Conference.  The co-champions are Belmont (25-7) and Murray State (23-8).  And their game went exactly as I said above – when Belmont won in the final seconds on a beautiful play.  And now Murray State, with their NET ranking being 135th and not getting the benefit of the automatic NIT bid (since Belmont won the tie-breaker and was the #1 seed in the conference tournament), will be waiting hoping that someone (whether it be the NIT, CBI or CIT) will invite them to play a few more games.

That is what life is like in these conference tournaments for the mid-majors.  For conferences like the Big 10 or the ACC, it is a chance for teams to strengthen their seed, or for a bubble team to earn their way into the field.  But in conferences like the Ohio Valley, losing means your season is likely over.  It is win or go home.

Take the Missouri Valley.  Northern Iowa was 25-5 going into the tournament with a NET ranking of 36.  Then, they got upset in the first round of the MVC tournament to 8th seeded Drake, and their NET ranking slipped all the way to 48th.  And now it looks like there is a very good chance that they will be going to the NIT.  If Wisconsin gets upset on Friday by #8 Rutgers or #9 Michigan, no one will bat an eye as they put the Badgers into the field.

Now, I am not trying to make an argument that Murray State or Northern Iowa should be in the tournament.  Murray State’s best victory this season is their home game against Belmont.  Northern Iowa is resting their hopes on a schedule that only has a victory at Colorado and on a neutral court against South Carolina.  It is simply to illustrate how much Championship Week means to these schools.  You can go 19-1 in conference like Stephen F Austin did, go 28-3 overall – and if you don’t win 3 games in back-to-back days of your conference tournament, not even your road victory against Duke will likely save your season.  Because you will still have a NET ranking of 78 and be compared against teams with a lot more losses, but a lot more wins against other tournament worthy teams.

Right now, only Gonzaga (WCC), Dayton (Atlantic 10), and San Diego State (Mt West – who lost in their tournament on a buzzer beater) look like they can easily survive a tournament lost.  American co-champion Houston at 21st looks like they are probably safe as well (but it is best for them not to get upset in the first round like Northern Iowa did).  East Tennessee State (who will be playing for the Southern championship on Monday at 40th) and Northern Iowa (who are hoping the committee will look at them at 48th) will at least get some consideration from the committee.  And while technically, Yale (Ivy – 69th), Akron (MAC – 73rd), Stephen F Austin (Southland – 78th) and Vermont (America East – 79th) are in the top 80 and hovering around bubble team UCLA, it is very clear that they better win like Atlantic Sun champion Liberty did today.  And there are still several regular season mid-major champions that did not even get mentioned in that paragraph.

That is the life of a mid-major regular season conference champion.  If you get a chance, watch some of these games.  For one reason, there are some really good teams playing in these games (as I said, SFA beat Duke at Cameron – that doesn’t typically happen if you are not a good team).  But the passion in these games will be incredible.  It isn’t that teams like Duke or Kansas won’t also play with emotion – everyone wants to win a conference championship.  But unlike Duke or Kansas, these schools know their season is over if they lose.  It is worth watching – and it is worth our admiration.  Good luck to all the regular season conference champions this week!!!

Well, it is ready through Saturday’s March 7th games!   For the most part, the file is the same as normal.   I have continued with the approach that conference tournament game are counted as conference games instead of post-season games.  There is one additional data point – while I have not calculated it, I used the NCAA’s new NET rankings to validate the records (since it lists the official neutral game records).  And since I had the new ranking on the file, I added it to the standings file.

I have also added two PDF files – for those of you who would like to see what some of the data sheets that the Selection Committee gets when making their decisions.  Fortunately for all of us, the NCAA puts their Team Sheets (which breaks each teams schedule into different rankings quadrants) and NET Nitty Gritty summary files on their RPI Archives Page – and so I have copied them and loaded them to the Research tab along with the Schedule 2020 Excel document.

No promises that I will update these three files every day, but wanted to make this available for everyone – and will update as I have time throughout the week – the spreadsheet has a page that says when it is last updated.

Obviously, remember the traditional Lunatic disclaimers.  I have done some basic cleaning and quality checks that the records from the schedule I have match the official NCAA site – but there are thousands of games, and so I will not make the claim that I have checked every piece of the dataset.  To be honest, I simply check to make sure the records match – I figure if I can get lucky enough that all 354 teams have the correct records, the rest of the data is probably right.  More importantly, because of multiple changes to the NCAA’s website as well as something unclear that has made me manually copy the box scores for all of Oral Roberts’ games, there are potential issues to be checked.  As one would expect, as I have been manually setting up the data, Oral Roberts started their Conference Tournament this evening.  And of course, they won – so I have at least two more box scores I have to manually update – with my luck, they will make it to the Summit finals…..   Anyways, I suspect the scores are right since the complete records are correct.  But take the data with a grain of salt.

That being said, one really interesting thing that this file does create is a side-by-side comparison of the old RPI calculation (which my tool still calculates – as does some other webpages) vs. the new NET model that the Selection Committee is using to rank games into the quadrants.  I am sure that at some point I will have to ramble about statistical rankings but it is pretty interesting.  There are definitely some teams (such as Texas Tech and Purdue) who have to be much happier that their bubble chances are based on the NET score instead of the RPI score.  Then again, after Purdue lost to Rutgers on Saturday, even a good NET score might not save them.

For those of you who are not familiar with this tradition of me doing insane data pulls to grab all this great college basketball data, I will give you some more details.

As many of you know, one of my insane features is that I try to provide people with data about the teams in case they want to do research on the teams. Each year, we get several people who have demonstrated the power of statistics by building models in order to predict the games. Some of them have been extremely successful with this – especially Bill Kahn with his Bradley-Terry models, showing that even something extremely unpredictable as sports can be forecasted through good statistical techniques. But the part of this that has made me happy – and why I do this – is because a few people who were not statisticians but were taking a stats training course at work used this data for their class project and ended up having some success – including our 2006 champion, David Shaddick.

So, since that point, I decided to provide the scores to everyone in an attempt to provide people as much of a chance to try to leverage data to make their decisions. I realize that most of you will probably spend three to five minutes just looking at the teams and figuring who will do best – I probably don’t need a model to decide that the number 1 seeds will beat the 16 seeds… In fact, I typically spend so much effort maintaining the site that I pick Purdue to go far and just randomly pick the other games late Wednesday evening.  So, I am not really sure what I am going to do this year with my Boilers looking like they might not be dancing.

However, if I can give people a chance to try to learn something about statistics in a very fun environment, it is well worth the effort.

If you notice something terribly wrong, let me know – no promises I have time to fix it, but at least everyone will know.

Enjoy the data!!!!

Last night, while there were important games in major conferences, the two most important games were playing in Las Vegas and Nashville. First, in the Mountain West Championship out in Vegas, #5 ranked San Diego State jumped out to a 16 point lead against Utah State. But Utah State kept chipping at the lead, tied the game late, and then watched as their leader, Sam Merrill drilled a well-contested three pointer with 2.5 seconds left to win the game 59-56. Then, in Nashville, top seeded Belmont won in the last seconds as Adam Kunkel made a great pass to Tyler Scanlon on a beautiful back-door cut to get the winning layup. Those victories mean Utah State and Belmont are the first two teams to earn their invitation to the 2020 NCAA Tournament! Also, when we are noticing buzzer beaters in the Mountain West and Ohio Valley Conferences, it can only mean one thing – IT MUST BE MARCH!!!!

And if it is March, it can only mean one more thing – it must be time to STOMP THE LUNATIC!!!!!!!

That’s right – the Lunatic is back for another month of sleep deprivation, looking through stat sheets in a foolish attempt to show he can predict college basketball games. And I am sure that this will end in the way it always ends, in a horrible beating. We all know better – he is no real threat – his kids will likely have better picks by picking schools that their grandparents attended. But while we all know this will end in a thorough stomping, we will all get to enjoy the entertaining ranting and raving of our favorite sleep-deprived lunatic!!!

So, without any more delays, the 2020 Stomp the Lunatic contest is officially announced!!!!!!!

The most important part is ready – the website is up and ready to go for another year of bracket picks.   As always, the website will have all of the pages that make the Stomp the Lunatic great – whether it be NCAA results so the statisticians can build predictive models, poorly done bracketology that will show the Lunatic is simply a crazy basketball fan, cheat sheets once the brackets are released for those of us who don’t want to do hours of analysis, and of course, everyone’s favorite rants about the games.  

Once the committee has announced the 68 teams next Sunday, I will update the site to have the entry form. If you don’t remember the rules (or this email has been forwarded to you), there is a link on the site. As we did last year, we will not pick the 4 play-in games. So, all entries are needed by Thursday, March 19th by the time the first games start (typically Noon).

If you have any questions, feel free to send me an e-mail (thomas@tehodgson.com), just realize I only check at night when I get home from work!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, if you don’t want to get further e-mails about this, please let me know, and I will do my best to remove you from the distribution list – although remember as mentioned up above, organized e-mail lists are not one of my strengths.

So, do your research, get ready for the Madness to begin, and good luck to everyone in STOMPING THE LUNATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If today is any indication of how the tournament will go, we are going to be in for a wildly entertaining ride.

First, in Las Vegas, #5 San Diego State found themselves up 27-11 late in the first half – well on their way to the Mountain West championship and possibly a #1 seed in the tournament.  Problem is no one explained this to Utah State.  The Aggies closed the gap to 8 by halftime, and kept chipping away at the lead until the stage was set.  Sam Merrill waited to bring as much of the clock down as possible, started his drive to the basket, stopped a good 3-4 feet behind the three-point line and drained a three-pointer (which was well defended) with 2.5 seconds left to make Utah State the first team to get their invitation to the dance with a stunning 59-56 victory.

Then, in Nashville, the top two teams from the Ohio Valley Conference (Belmont and Murray State) played for their conference’s big prize.  Unlike the Mountain West championship, despite Belmont being 25-7 and Murray State being 23-8, this appears to be a win or stay home type of game.  And they played like it.  Belmont found themselves up one point with 22 seconds with 83% FT shooter Adam Kunkel on the line to try to seal the game.  But Kunkel missed the FT, Murray State came back down the court, and Tevin Brown drew a foul with 11 seconds on his drive to the basket.  Brown calmly hit both FTs to give Murray State the lead.  But Belmont would have one last chance.   And in a fitting way, Adam Kunkel got the ball, dribbled to the top of the key, and made a beautiful back-door pass to a wide open Tyler Scanlon who finished the play with a nice layup with only 3 seconds left.  This time, Murray State wouldn’t get another good chance, and Belmont won the game 76-75 to get their ticket to the dance.

Two conference championship games – two buzzer beater endings – two teams earning their way into the NCAA Championship!!!!!!  Can’t get much better than that!!!!!!