Stomp The Lunatic

It is so exciting – the Final 4 games are just a few hours away.   So, as I am crazy excited about the games tonight, I figured I would go ahead and do some of my normal ranting.

With only 3 games left, I figured I would look at each conference and give them a grade based on their performance vs. expected wins based on seed.

Big 10 (Grade = A+, Exp Value = +3) – Many have called this a down year for the Big 10, and yet, going into tonight, the Big 10 has the most teams remaining.  Everyone expected Wisconsin to be where they are, but the Spartans totally crashed the party.  Both Big 10 teams are underdogs tonight, and beating Kentucky and Duke will be really tough – but it will not shock me if the Big 10 continues to win in Indianapolis.

Pac 12 (Grade = A, Exp Value = +3) – The only reason this isn’t an A+ is because there is no Final 4 team.  While that might be unfair since seeds said they weren’t supposed to have one, it doesn’t feel right to give them an A+.  That being said, Arizona did what they were supposed to do, Utah upset Georgetown and kept things close against Duke, and UCLA was said by many that they shouldn’t have even been in the tournament – and they went to the Sweet 16 as well.  This was a great showing for the West Coast!

ACC (Grade = A, Exp Value = +1) – The ACC would have easily been an A+ and the highest ranked conference had it not been for Michigan State’s upset of Virginia.  While only Duke made it to the Final 4, the ACC had both Louisville and Notre Dame unexpectedly make the Elite 8, North Carolina State had one of the biggest upsets of the tourney by taking out Villanova to get to the Sweet 16, and UNC also played well to get to the Sweet 16.

Missouri Valley (Grade = B+, Exp Value = +1) – Wichita State upset Kansas to make the Sweet 16, and Northern Iowa played well to win their first game.  I think you need to at least get an Elite 8 team to get an A – but this is a great showing for a smaller conference.

SEC (Grade = B, Exp Value = 0) – I struggled with this.   On one hand, Kentucky got to the Final 4, which is a huge win for what is considered sometimes only a football conference.  But lets be fair, Kentucky is supposed to be here – they are 38-0 for a reason.  The only other win for the conference in the final 64 was Arkansas’ victory over Wofford (guess you can say Ole Miss beating BYU in the Tuesday game – but that feels weak).  I bumped them up a little because of having a Final 4 team, but this really just feels average.

Big East (Grade = D, Exp Value = -4) – Villanova being the first #1 seed to be knocked out was a huge blow for the conference.   Georgetown and Providence both lost a round earlier than they were supposed to, and the only team that went further than they were supposed to was Xavier – and while they played well, they were aided by only have to beat an 11 seed and 14 seed to get to the Sweet 16.

Big 12 (Grade = F, Exp Value = -5) – This was the season that the Big 12 was ranked better than both the ACC and Big 10 – and they were rewarded with 5 protected seeds that were expected to all be playing after the first weekend.  Instead, Baylor and Iowa State both lost to 14 seeds, and #2 seed Kansas lost in the second round.  The only team to make it further than they were supposed to was West Virginia – and their reward was losing by 39 points to Kentucky.

Special Note:  Didn’t really call out any of the smaller conferences outside the Missouri Valley.  But they were an interesting group if you combine them together.  First, Gonzaga got to the Elite 8 – which while they were supposed to – is still a big victory for a mid-major conference.  And Sun Belt champions Georgia State along with Conf USA champions UAB both pulled off the crazy rare upset as a 14 seed.  However, the other classically strong non power conferences like the Atlantic 10, American, and Mountain West all fizzled out with none of them making the Sweet 16.    And not a single 12 or 13 seed won a tournament game this year.   So it was a really spiky tournament for the smaller conferences.

This is unchartered waters – that have made me have to look through the results over and over again.  But thanks to the Crazed Lunatic’s insane picks correctly identifying the Final 4 participants, our resident crazy person has a 10 point lead in the pool.  Special congratulations also goes out to Pam Ciejek, who was the only other person who got all 4 of the correct teams playing in Indianapolis.

At this point, the Lunatic at 1010 points is beating the entry who put their name in as Kevin by 10 points, followed closely by Joe Haggerty (30 behind) and Chris Hamson and Charlie Hodgson (40 behind).

In the Upset Pool, Will Shipley has built an insurmountable lead with 292 points.  If the unofficial scenarios are correct, Will has successfully won the Upset Pool – congratulations Will!!!!  Currently, Will is being followed by Chris Hamson (261), Ann Hawkins (260) and Donna Woodburn and Peter Lifson (259).

In our Second Chance Pool, we have 5 perfect brackets.  Fantastic job by Butch Bisese, Paul Hamer, Brian Lawton, Heath Lindvall, and Josh Lacks.

Also, while it is never the award anyone wants, the money returned for Last Place in the Standard Pool also looks like it is locked up by Tracy Vail-Rhodes (as Duke’s victory today over Gonzaga took my wonderful wife’s picks out of last place

Assuming the scenario files are correct, here are the below potential winners.  Good luck to everyone!!!!!

 

	STANDARD	UPSET	SECOND CHANCE
Kentucky beats Duke	Charlie Hodgson – 1370	Will Shipley – 308	Heath Lindvall Josh Lacks Butch Bisese – 1040
Kentucky beats Michigan State	Nathan Standley – 1320	Will Shipley – 303	Lauren Martin – 1000
Duke beats Kentucky	CRAZED LUNATIC – 1410	Will Shipley – 302	Brian Lawton – 1040
Duke beats Wisconsin	Troy Cole – 1320	Will Shipley – 297	Troy Cole Jim Sell Brian Lawton – 920
Wisconsin beats Duke	Nathan Standley – 1310	Will Shipley – 297	Paul Hamer – 1040
Wisconsin beats Michigan State	Joe Haggerty – 1260	Will Shipley – 292	Dave Wagner – 1000
Michigan State beats Kentucky	Nathan Standley – 1160	Will Shipley – 297	Lauren Martin – 840
Michigan State beats Wisconsin	Kevin – 1120	Will Shipley – 292	Dave Wagner – 840

 

The Final 4 is now set, as the Duke Blue Devils just were too tough on defense and managed to go on two significant runs in the second half to finish off Gonzaga to win the South Regional in Houston.

Gonzaga made a run at trying to make the Final Four for the first time in school history – as they quickly turned a 5 point half time deficit to a 4 point lead.  But Duke quickly went on a 9 point run to take back control.  And then, the Blue Devils stopped Gonzaga from getting a basket from the field for the final 6 minutes to continue to pull farther and farther ahead.

Congratulations to the Duke Blue Devils – the final team to punch their ticket to Indianapolis.    If the games continue to be as close as they were this weekend, it will be an amazing Final Four!!!!!!

The East Regional Final was so awesome that they needed 5 more minutes to determine a champion.  It was a tale of two halves – in the first half, Louisville destroyed the Spartans in the paint and jumped out to an 8 point half time lead.  As Louisville was holding for the last shot in the first half (which they made), CBS posted a pretty amazing stat – the Cardinals had won 94 straight games where they had a lead of 6 or more at the half.

Only problem is no one told the Michigan State Spartans that the odds said the game was over.  Michigan State started driving to the basket, took the inside game away on defense and really opened up the game to having both some impressive drives and nice kick-outs for three to take the lead.  But neither team could hit the critical free throws at the end of the game to take the game – sending it to overtime.

Then, the Spartans kicked off the overtime with a big three-point shot that gave the Spartans a lead that this time, they would not give up.   Branden Dawson hit a huge tip-in with about 30 seconds left, and then Travis Trice hit two free throws to finish the game and send Michigan State to Indianapolis.

Congratulations to the Michigan State Spartans, our third team to reach the Final Four!

What an incredible game.  You have to give all the praise to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, as they gave Kentucky everything that they had.  The Irish held the lead through most of the second half, but Karl-Anthony Towns kept scoring down low, and his 25 points helped lead the Irish back to tie the game with about a minute to play.

Then, Kentucky played their amazing tough defense – blocked yet another shot to force a shot clock violation, and then Andrew Harrison drove hard to the basket to draw a foul with 6 seconds left, allowing the Wildcats to take the lead from the line.  Yet, there was still discomfort as the Irish pushed the ball up the court – and it wasn’t until Jerian Grant’s three point attempt missed the basket and the clock struck zero that the Wildcats could finally relax.

So, the Wildcats finally found themselves challenged in this tournament – and the #1 seed managed to rise above the challenge to survive and advance.   The SEC Champion will be dancing in Indianapolis – awaiting them is the team that they met in last year’s final four, the Wisconsin Badgers.  Considering last year was a one point game, I imagine this year will shape up to be an outstanding game as well.

Frank Kaminsky scored 29 points, Sam Dekker added 27, and the Badgers shot 10 of 12 from the three point line to overcome a 3 point halftime lead from the Wildcats to take the first spot in the Final Four.

You have to feel a little bit for the Arizona Wildcats, this is their 5th straight loss in the Elite 8 in the last 11 seasons – and 3rd in the last 4 seasons.   Not to mention, this is the second year in a row that the Badgers have come to California to end the Wildcats season.

However, the Big 10 champions just were too good offensively tonight – congratulations to the Badgers for winning the West Regional!

Congratulations to Duke and Michigan State for winning the final 2 spots in the Elite 8.  Duke managed to have one more extra run thanks to Justise Winslow, while Michigan State seemed to manage to stay consistently just one basket ahead of the Sooners to outlast Oklahoma.   But there was one really revealing thing that happened – the Blue Devils and Spartans showed a quality of a great team closing a game that gets overlooked.   They hit their free throws.

Duke hit 8 of their last 10 free throws (ignoring the 1 for 2 with 0.7 seconds left that at this point didn’t matter), and Michigan State hit their last 6 free throws to both seal the games.  It is hard to come back against a team when they hit those critical FTs at the end of the game.

So – the stage is set – we have Kentucky vs. Notre Dame, Wisconsin vs. Arizona, Louisville vs. Michigan State, and Duke vs. Gonzaga.   Four games with the winners heading to Indianapolis to play for the championship.

In our championship, Edward Zhang has reclaimed the lead at 770 points.   Nathan Standley and Kevin find themselves just 10 points back, Alex Simon is 20 points back, and Joe Haggerty and Ann Hawkins are just 30 points back.

In the Upset Pool, Will Shipley has taken over the lead of the Upset Pool thanks to picking Michigan State – Will is followed closely by Donna Woodburn – just 5 points back, and Edward Zhang who is just 9 points back.

This might be the year that we will have to use the tie-breaker vigilantly for the Second Chance Bracket – we have 22 entries that went a perfect 8 for 8 in the Sweet 16.  There will obviously still be some separation from the Elite 8 games – but if the chalk keeps winning, there are likely going to be some ties.

The Lunatic is quietly lurking in a tie for 25th place.  His insane picks of watching the East Region blow up have led to getting 7 of the 8 Elite 8 teams correctly – making up some ground from all of the other crazy picks he made.  Will the weekend squash any dreams for a comeback – we all probably know that answer.   STOMP! STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

It is tough when you are a college basketball crazed fan when your choices at 11:30 pm at night are to watch the halftime show of the last game of the night, or watch Kentucky completely destroy West Virginia – currently the Wildcats are leading by 35 points – as I imagine the Mountaineers are thinking that the next 12 minutes can not go fast enough.  Normally, I would say any basketball game is better than watching a halftime show – but at the moment, I am just not sure that holds in this case.

Although this is a good message of warning to Notre Dame – don’t make any comments about Kentucky going to be 37-1 after you are done with them (the way one of West Virginia’s players did this week).  They seem to be a little inspired to prove a point – don’t poke the Wildcat – it bites……