Stomp The Lunatic

Kennedy Meeks and Justin Jackson put the Tar Heels on their shoulders tonight as Meeks scored 25 points and pulled down 14 rebounds while Jackson added 22 points, including some key three pointers from the corner to extend the Tar Heels’ lead.   But there was no quit in the Ducks, and it got exciting.

First, Jordan Bell hit a layup to cut the lead to 75-71 with just 1:18 left in the game.  Theo Pinson drove hard to the basket off a rebound, drew a foul and hit both free throws to extend the lead to 6.    Then, Bell pulled down a big offensive rebound and kicked the ball out to Tyler Dorsey, who cut the lead to 3 with a three-pointer with 46 seconds left.

So, the Ducks decide to play defense – and they do a great job, forcing a missed drive by Pinson.   Jordan Bell fell to the ground in getting the rebound and realizing the Ducks had no time-outs somehow managed to get the ball to a teammate as the Tar Heels tried to swarm him to get a jump ball.   But when UNC closed in on the three-point line, Oregon decided to cut the lead as Dylan Ennis found Keith Smith under the basket for an easy layup to make it a 1 point game with just 6 seconds left.

But that decision meant now the Ducks had to foul.    They forced the ball in Kennedy Meeks hands – and while Meeks had been dominating in the lane, he is not the best free throw shooter.   Add the pressure of a chance to play for the National Championship, and amazingly, Meeks missed both free throws.   But somehow, Theo Pinson slapped the ball out and into the hands of Joel Berry II.

Berry is an 80% free throw shooter, and so normally the guy you want having the ball.   But Berry had been fighting an ankle injury all night and had shot horribly from the field.   And even if Berry makes the free throws, there is still 4 seconds for Oregon to have a chance to tie the game.   But Berry misses the first free throw short, and the suspense in the arena continued to build.   No one would expect that Berry’s second free throw would be off the back of the rim, but somehow, Kennedy Meeks stepped in, jumped over everyone to get the rebound, and quickly kicked the ball back outside so that the Tar Heels could run out the rest of the clock.

That’s right, the Tar Heels missed 4 free throws in the last 6 seconds of the game, and yet Oregon never got the ball to try to take the game winning shot.    Tar Heels fans can now exhale and breathe again.   Your team hung on for a 77-76 victory and will be playing for the National Championship.

So, we have mid-major West Coast Conference champion Gonzaga in their first ever Final Four trying to show that they are no longer Cinderella as they were in the late 90s – they are now a national program to be dealt with.    And we have power 6 Atlantic Coast Conference champion North Carolina in their 20th Final Four (the most by any program) chasing after their 6th national championship (7th if you count the one from 1924 before the NCAA Tournament existed).   They were 4 seconds away from forcing overtime last year, and now, they have a chance at redemption to claim the championship that eluded them.     Should be a great championship game on Monday night!!!!!

The Ducks stormed out early and built an 8 point lead as Dylan Ennis hit two big three pointers to get the score to 30-22.   But Justin Jackson and Kennedy Meeks led the Tar Heels on a 17-6 run to end the half and give the Tar Heels a 39-36 lead.

Pretty exciting night of basketball so far – one more half to go!!!!

Well that was thrilling.   Gonzaga looked like they had the game well under control with 62-48 lead with about 12 minutes to play.   But then the Gamecocks came charging back.   The next five minutes watched South Carolina outscore the Bulldogs 19-3.  First, Duane Notice hit a three, then some free throws by Chris Silva, then a basket by PJ Dozier, then a big three by Sindarius Thornwell, and they were on a huge roll.

But Gonzaga didn’t panic.   Zach Collins hit a three pointer, and Przemek Karnowski made a monster dunk and another layup and the Zags were back up 5.  The last couple minutes were very exciting as South Carolina would miss a shot, but get an offfensive rebound, but then Gonzaga would hold on defense to cause another missed shot.   With Gonzaga holding a three point lead, South Carolina managed to stop Nigel Williams-Goss from scoring and somehow didn’t get called for a foul on the rebound – it was actually funny, they went to the replay to make sure it was off Gonzaga, and you could see the South Carolina player slap the Bulldog’s arm and hold him back as he tried to save the ball from going out.   But the replay clearly showed the ball was off Gonzaga – which is all you can use the replay for.   South Carolina brought the ball up the court, but struggled to get off a shot – then with the clock down to 3 seconds, Gonzaga intentionally fouled to make sure they couldn’t tie the game.

Thornwell hit the first free throw to make it a two point game, and intentionally missed the second free throw, and backup freshman forward Killian Tillie pulled down the rebound and got fouled.  And with everything on the line, the freshman – who before this moment had no shots and only one rebound – calmly hit both free throws to ice the game.

It was a great effort by South Carolina, but in the end, their effort to be the first team to come back from half time deficits four times in the tournament.   They simply didn’t have an answer for the drives from Niles Williams-Goss, who had 23 points and 6 assists, and the inside game from Gonzaga’s two seven footers as Karnowski had 13 points, and Zach Collins had 14 points, 13 rebounds and 6 blocks from coming off the bench.   And so the Zags hung on for a 77-73 victory and are our first semi-finals winner.

Now, the mid-major West Coast Conference champion will wait to see if they will be playing the major conference ACC champion North Carolina or the major conference Pac 12 co-champion Oregon.    Most of the year as Gonzaga has gone on their streak of being undefeated for the season, you would hear the comments about how the Zags wouldn’t be able to have that record if they were in a major conference.   Well, they now have knocked off Northwestern, West Virginia, Xavier and South Carolina.   And they will get to have the opportunity to make the biggest statement of all – by winning the National Championship.    Congratulations to the Gonzaga Bulldogs on their first Final Four victory in school history!!!!

The offenses from both teams were on from the start of this game.  I also think the game has gotten pretty physical, but I think one of the moments that should have gotten called has propelled the Bulldogs to their lead.   Przemek Karnowski, the Zags big center who had been making lots of good plays in the lane, went up for a layup and got blocked by Chris Silva.   While the block of the ball was clean, Silva’s hand followed through to slap Karnowski across the face and knocking him down to the ground – while the contact on the shot was clean, I didn’t think you were allowed to follow through to cause that type of contact.   With the big guy lying on the ground in pain, South Carolina quickly went down the court and hit Justin McKie for a three-pointer to tie the game at 31.

And while Gonzaga lost their center for the last 5 minutes of the half, Gonzaga was sparked by this.   The Zags started to get more physical themselves – including a brutal screen that took out a South Carolina defender.   Zach Collins took over inside with a layup, a couple of rebounds, and a block.  And Nigel Williams-Goss was incredible.  Williams-Goss was unstoppable when he drove to the basket, and then kicked the ball out to Jordan Matthews on the wing for a three pointer that stretched the lead to 45-36.   The Bulldogs almost added 3 more to their 14-5 run, but Silas Melson’s three-pointer was still in his hand when the buzzer went off.

It is probably not helping that South Carolina’s star player Sindarius Thornwell has struggled in the first half – it was very unfortunate timing that he has been fighting the flu all week, but he looks a little lethargic in only getting 5 points.

This is not unfamiliar territory for the Gamecocks.   They have been down at half time in 3 of their 4 tournament games, including down 7 to both Duke and Florida.   We will see if they can come back one more time.

The Lunatic’s Handicapping has been a complete disaster.   After finally beating some of the bracketologists on who the Selection Committee would pick, he was feeling like he was in for a good year of picking the games.   Then, the last few weeks was a simple reminder of why I don’t go to Vegas Sportsbooks any more.

Despite a winning record against the over-unders, the Lunatic found himself down an imaginary 119 dollars.  And that was good compared to how he did against the spread – where he was down 210.    If you basically took any team the Lunatic didn’t, you would have done pretty well.

In the Elite 8, I picked Xavier to keep the game close against Gonzaga (it was not), and the other three favorites to cover small spreads.   Both Kansas and Florida lost, and UNC’s exciting 2 point victory wasn’t enough to cover the 2.5 spread.

This exercise is always a reminder to me of how hard this is.  The team that Vegas favored (minus their two games that were pick’em games) went 45-17 in the tournament so far.   But only 28 of those 45 teams covered the spread.   So, you have to figure out which lines are too many points.

I broke the games into three groups to see where I went wrong.   Games with lines <= 4 points (basically, a game that should could down to last couple of possessions), lines from 4.5 – 9.5, and double digit games.    I am going to leave the 2 pick’em games out – ironically, though, I got both those games right.

On Double Digits games, all 17 times the favorite won.   But only 9 covered the double digit spread.  I foolishly only picked 4 underdogs to keep the game close – and went 2-2 in those.  Which means I went 6-7 in the other games.  But this shows how hard it can be.   Obviously, most of us would have picked the favorite to win these games – but it isn’t enough to pick who wins, they need to also cover.

On middle games, the Vegas favorite won 15 of 21 times.   But the Vegas favorite covered only 9.5 times.   So, you would have been better off picking the underdog all the time.    Of course, the Lunatic didn’t do that.  I picked the underdog only 9 times – sadly 6 of those times, the favorite covered.   So, this is definitely where things went wrong for me.    I only won 6.5 games of this group.    The 9 times I thought the underdog would keep it close, I only was right 3 times.  And of the 12 times I picked the favorite, 5 of them were upset, and 3 others didn’t cover the spread.

So, with the close games, it makes sense this is where the upsets happened.   The Vegas Favorite went 13-11 in these games.  Interestingly,  2 of those 13 didn’t cover the spread, despite the spread being less than 4 points (of course, I picked the favorite in both of those games).   I picked the underdog to win 13 of these games and went 6-6-1.   That means for the 11 favorites I picked, I went 6-5 on the winner, but because I was unlucky enough to pick the only 2 winners in this group not to cover, my favorites fall to 5-7.

So, I did pretty poorly, all around – but 14 of my losses were times that I knew the winner – I picked the favorite to win and they did – they just didn’t cover the spread.   Add into it the 10% the house takes for each victory, and it you can see how easy it is to lose quickly.   If you also include the Lunatic curse of any team I lock loses (I went 3-10 on the games I locked), and that means lots of money for the sportsbook.

Thus, I have decided it would be horrible to allow the Lunatic curse to decide any of the remaining games – I can’t get to a winning record anyways.   So, Lunatic handicapping is over for the tournament.     If you need a gambling report, here is the information to know.

Gonzaga is a 6.5 point favorite against South Carolina in the first game.   According to covers.com, 54% of the public are picking the underdog Gamecocks, but of the 29 covers.com experts, 21 of them support the Bulldogs.   The experts and public are in more agreement on the over/under – with both leaning towards the teams to score more than the 137.5 O/U line.

North Carolina is a 4.5 point favorite against Oregon in the second game.   Once again, the public and experts disagree on the spread – 52% of the public have the Ducks, 57% of the experts have the Tar Heels.    The public loves the over of 153 in this game – in fact, they like it so much that the O/U has moved up 4.5 points from when the line opened.  The experts also say take the over, but they are more split (56%).

So, there you have it – no picks from the Lunatic – who obviously doesn’t know what he is doing.   The Vegas lines and the covers.com experts think we will have a Gonzaga / UNC championship game – while the public at least like Oregon and South Carolina to keep the games close if not pull the upset.    But as the women’s tournament reminded us – you might be able to use stats to figure out who will likely win the game, but there is a reason we play the games.   The only thing that you can truly know is that by the end of the night, we will have two well-deserving teams who won their right to play for the championship on the court.    Who could ask for more than that?

Enjoy tonight’s games – they should be fantastic!!!!

Morgan William  hit the shot that created a roar in Dallas, Texas that might have been heard across the entire country.   Because that shot has changed the face of women’s basketball.    With 5 seconds left in overtime, William drove towards the basket, pulled up near the free throw line, and hit a jumper that gave the Bulldogs a 66-64 victory over the mighty UConn Huskies.

The last time the Huskies lost was in November 17, 2014 – an overtime lost to Stanford.    They had won 33 of their 36 games this year by double digits – which had extended their unbeaten streak to 111 games.

The last time the Huskies played Mississippi State was last year’s Sweet 16, where the Huskies ended their season with a 98-38 pounding.   Mississippi State kept a reminder of that game – they hung the number 60 in their weight room as a reminder.

The Bulldogs jumped out to a 29-13 lead, but the Huskies chipped away at that lead to reduce it to 8 by halftime.   That 8 points was still the largest halftime deficit the Huskies had faced during their 111 game winning streak.  UConn kept chipping away at the lead and took a 3 point lead of their own with 2 1/2 minutes off a Gabby Williams jumper.  But Victoria Vivians, who led the Bulldogs with 19 points, hit a free throw and a big three pointer with a minute left to give MSU a 1 point lead.  Connecticut tied the game at the free throw line, but that gave the Bulldogs a chance to win the game in regulation.   Morgan William drove to the basket to try to win the game but her layup was blocked by Gabby Williams and we headed to overtime.

The Bulldogs had a 64-62 lead late in overtime and looked like they had made a big defensive stop – but a flagrant foul was called away from the ball on Dominique Dillingham who had knocked down Katie Lou Samuelson.   Samuelson hit both free throws to tie the game, and the flagrant foul gave the Huskies the ball.  Saniya Chong drove toward the basket to try to win the game, but Morgan William played great defense and forced Chong to lose the ball out of bounds.

William’s great defense then set the stage, where she pulled up and hit a high-arching jumper over the same person who blocked her shot in regulation, and all the Huskies could do is watch as the ball floated into the basket as the buzzer rang.

You have to give a lot of credit to the UConn Huskies – their streak of 111 wins might not ever be matched again.  But Friday night belonged to the Mississippi State Bulldogs – they have advanced to the Women’s Championship game on Sunday.   There, they will face a re-match of the SEC championship – as South Carolina had made their way to the championship earlier by beating Stanford 62-53.    South Carolina has beaten MSU twice this season (by 10 in the SEC championship and at home in late January by 3).   But after knocking off a team that had won 111 straight, anything is possible for this Mississippi State team.

Sadly, there are only 3 more basketball games left of the madness.   But there is still over 2 days until we get back to watching the National Semifinals.   So, the Lunatic is restless – he wants basketball to rant about – he needs basketball to rant about.   And time is running out.   So here is an extremely random rant.

There is still basketball being played – but to be honest I haven’t been as interested in it.   But these teams do deserve a lot of honor for what they have accomplished in March.    So – here is their brief moment.

• Congratulations to TCU – the winner of the NIT tournament.   The Horned Frogs headed to Madison Square Garden, beat Central Florida in the semi-finals on Tuesday, and finished off Georgia Tech tonight in the Finals.     Congratulations also go out to Georgia Tech, UCF, and CSU-Bakersfield (as an 8 seed) for making the NIT Final Four!
• The CBI finishes off its final on Friday – it has a unique best 2 out of 3 final.   Coastal Carolina won at home on Monday by 10, but Wyoming won at home on Wednesday by 24 – so Friday’s game in Laramie, Wyoming between the Chanticleers and Cowboys will be for all the marbles.
• Friday will also be the final for the CIT – which will be between Texas A&M – Corpus Christi and Saint Peter’s

I noticed on ESPN’s site, that Mississippi State’s women’s team – who beat Baylor in overtime to make it to the Women’s Final Four have a cool tidbit.   They will boast the first ever father – daughter combo at the Final Four – as coach Vic Shaefer will lead the Bulldogs, including his daughter Blair.    There reward is unfortunately a date with Connecticut – so they have the daunting task of trying to do what 111 teams prior to them have not been able to do – beat the Huskies.

South Carolina’s men’s team is not the only team still dancing – the Gamecocks are sending both their men’s and women’s team to the Final Four.   And while the men’s might have been a little bit of a surprise, the women’s definitely was not as they were their region’s #1 seed.   They will go against #2 Stanford to see if they can get the right to lose in the championship to UConn.    This is nothing against them – they are a great team.   But the Huskies are so dominant right now, it is hard to imagine them losing at this point.

Back to the NIT for a second – how much does this say about the bubble teams that missed the tournament.   They were given home field advantage to make it to the semi-finals in New York – and none of them could get there.   Cal lost their first round game to CSU-Bakersfield, Syracuse lost their second round game to Ole Miss, Iowa lost their second round game to TCU, and Illinois State lost their second round game to UCF.   Just another reminder of the fact that the Selection Committee got it right.   While I understand that it has to be heartbreaking to just miss the tournament, and some teams were dealing with injuries, it is hard to believe these bubble teams would have gone far if they couldn’t win three home games against other teams who just missed the tournament.

Have to give my quick reaction / comments to the insanity of LaVar Ball – many have been commenting about how it is ridiculous about how much pressure he is putting on his sons.   I even heard on the radio today that they think more parents should be like this and push their children hard to be winners.   But he has crossed the line with his comments.  Lonzo Ball might be a great NBA player – but saying that he will be better than Steph Curry is just ludicrous – if he is that good, why wasn’t he able to lead UCLA to the Final Four (heck, even the Elite 8 – Kentucky knocked them out in the Sweet 16).   Then saying he is looking to get a $1 billion dollar shoe deal over 10 years for his sons – to put into perspective, LeBron’s deal is worth $1 billion for a lifetime.   Two of his sons are not even out of high school yet.   But then he talked about how his kids are riding around in $100K BMWs since he saved so much money on not having to pay tuition.   It is one thing to think your child will be great – it is another to be saying he deserves to be compared to Steph Curry and LeBron James.   You have to earn your accolades – so far, Ball couldn’t even lead his team out of the Final Four or get player of the year honors.   But then to ask for money for your high school sons and talk about how your kids are rolling around in BMWs is above stupid.   So are you saying that UCLA has paid Lonzo Ball to play this season, and that they will pay for the younger brothers when it is their turn.   He is basically asking the NCAA to investigate them for improper benefits – which isn’t smart.    I love being supportive of your child, but lets stay in reality.

Many of you might have heard that Indiana has hired Dayton’s Archie Miller as their new coach.   To be honest, all things considered, I think this is maybe the best possible hire that they could have done.   While they might have thought they could, they were never going to get Steve Alford (UCLA), Scott Drew (Baylor), Chris Mack (Xavier) or Chris Holtmann (Butler) to leave their programs from other Power 6 conferences to take the Hoosiers’ job.  So, you had to figure it would come down to Miller – who is an excellent young coach, or Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall (who probably would have been harder to convince with all the talent Marshall has coming back next season for the Shockers).   So, you have to consider that a success for the Hoosiers.   But as good of a coach that Miller is, he has not had to get the level of recruits at Dayton that he will need to meet Indiana’s requirements.   So, you are counting on the Hoosier’s brand.    In an article on ESPN, they talked about how Miller will focus recruiting from an “inside-out” approach, making sure they get the best talent from Indiana.   So, lets look at the recruiting rankings.  This year, getting the top Indiana seniors would be pretty awesome, as you could get Kris Wilkes (13th), Jaren Jackson (16th), Paul Scruggs (28th) and Malik Williams (29th).   But unfortunately, all of them have already done early commitments.  So, we have to go to 2018 – there is Romeo Lankford, the 3rd ranked junior in ESPN’s Top 60.   Well, Miller better get him – because if his focus is on the top Indiana talent and he loses Lankford, there are no more Indiana players in the top 60 – you are not likely going to win National Championships without top 60 players.    So, now you see what the expectations of Archie Miller are – I hope he is able to succeed where Tom Crean did not, but as talented as Miller is, the odds are not in his favor when his success might lie on a recruit that is likely to get offers from Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Louisville and UCLA.

OK – enough ranting for tonight.   The Final Four is almost here…..

The unofficial scenario files are up!    These have been done quickly and not validated – so these exist with the typical Lunatic disclaimer that the only official results are from the standings page (since that is the page I validate).  So, enjoy going out there and figuring out which of the final 8 scenarios give your bracket the best chance of winning (or at least the best possible standings).

Good luck to everyone!!!!!

What an incredible battle to finish off the Elite 8.   The Tar Heels led for most of the game, but Kentucky went on a 17-6 run led by Isaac Humphries, who scored 8 of his 12 points, including a jumper that gave the Wildcats a 5 point lead with just 5 minutes left.   And Elizabeth and I could hear her father screaming all the way from North Carolina, “Call Time Out, Roy!”   And shockingly, a time out was actually called.

But just like in the Arkansas game, UNC went on a 12-0 run, led by Theo Pinson, who scored 6 of his 9 points and pulled down 3 critical defensive rebounds to give the Tar Heels a 71-64 lead with 54 seconds left.   You would figure that this was the end.

But De’Aaron Fox drilled a three pointer from the corner to reduce the lead to 4.   And then, Kentucky’s press forced a five second violation – which led to the Wildcats getting the ball to Malik Monk at the top of the key, where he hit an impressive three pointer to cut the lead to 1.

UNC managed to catch Kentucky over-defending with a baseball pass down the court to Justin Jackson, leading to a breakaway layup to extend the lead to 3.   Then, with 17 seconds left, UNC forced a jump ball to get the chance to ice the game.  UNC inbounded to Justin Jackson, but Jackson missed the front end of the one-and-one – giving Kentucky new life.

The Wildcats took advantage as they got the ball quickly to Malik Monk, who dribbled to the top of the key and hit the game tying three pointer with 10 seconds.   Most teams at this point would call timeout and try to set up a game winning play.   But not the Tar Heels – they inbounded the ball to Theo Pinson, who quickly dribbled up the court, into the lane, got the defense to collapse on him as he drove along the lane, and then kicked the ball out to a wide-open Luke Maye – who hit the jumper to give the Tar Heels a 75-73 victory.

And the Tar Heels survived an amazing comeback from the Kentucky Wildcats, and hit a buzzer-beater to punch their ticket to Phoenix.   The ACC champions North Carolina become the last team in the Final Four!!!!!!