Stomp The Lunatic

Well – this is normally the time that the Lunatic gets his expert panel together – himself, Mrs. Lunatic, Charlie and Katie – and pick the Sweet 16 games.

But with only 12 minutes before the games, the Lunatic has come to a sad moment of realization.

The cutest part of this segment was his darling kids, where they would pick because of where Grandpa went to school or because Nanny and Grandma are Irish, or because their favorite color was purple.

But my eight year old son and five year old daughter surprised me this year – apparently they have become autonomous.

Here is how our experts pick:

Charlie – the co-leader of the pool – asked me to check what ESPN PickCenter had and went with it (except for NC State against Louisville since the Wolfpack beat the Cardinals earlier in the year).   If you want to know who he picked, just go to ESPN.

Katie – who I expected that I could still convince to play along, picked Wisconsin over UNC because Charlie did, and then shockingly picked Utah over Duke (I think because Utah was the second team I mentioned and she was bored by this point and just said the last thing I said).

Myself – I entered my Handicapping – but it is doing so poorly that it doesn’t deserve to make its way into the front page.  If you want to make money in Vegas, take my picks and go against them.

And then Mrs. Lunatic – who is just sitting with a large smile on her face – is just happy that she does not have to deal with this nonsense.  She is a great sport and puts up with me during this time of year.

So – there you go, the type of analysis that you have come to learn and expect from the Stomp the Lunatic Blog.   Enjoy the Sweet 16 games tonight!!!!!!!!

Ten reasons to do the Stomp the Lunatic Second Chance Pool

• You no longer have a Final Four team left in your real bracket after your creative Big 12 / Big East winners by picking Kansas, Baylor, Villanova, and Georgetown blew up
• You want another chance to say that you had a perfect bracket after your billion dollar picks were ruined in the second game when UAB upset Iowa State.
• Now that your school has been eliminated from the tournament, you can pick teams intelligently and really show off you basketball knowledge instead of blindly picking Purdue – whoops, I mean your school’s team.
• Your son who chose based on whoever ESPN Pick Center said would win and your daughter who picked schools which are purple because that is her favorite color are both beating you in the pool and you want another chance to redeem yourself
• Because there is not a pool that allows you to pick who gets eliminated each week from Dancing With the Stars.
• You have decided that all the teams you pick are jinxed, and since there are still schools out there that you don’t like, you want to test the theory by picking them. If you have that power (like the Lunatic does), you might as well use that power for good
• You want to be able to say that you legitimately picked in a bracket for a double digit seed to make the Elite 8 – go UCLA!!!!!!
• You want to be able to pick an all ACC bracket (Notre Dame, UNC, Louisville / NC State, and Duke) and then scream at your television the remainder of the tournament as Kentucky starts knocking them off one by one.
• It is another – and more importantly, last chance in 2015 to STOMP THE LUNATIC!
• It’s absolutely FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s right – your entry fee already covers your Second Chance Pool entry – and so there is absolutely no good reason not to do the Second Chance Pool. You even have all Thursday afternoon to do them, since the games don’t start until 7:15 pm. Good luck to all of you!!

It was an interesting weekend.  Lots of favorites have made their way to the Sweet 16.  There is only one double digit seed left, and while we tend to like to call them Cinderella, it is hard for me to consider UCLA a Cinderella team – but the likes of NC State, Michigan State and Wichita State don’t feel right either.   Looks like we will have a lot of the traditional power conferences fight it out for the championship.

But I can ramble about that later.  Lets get to the standings.

The leaders in the pool are Edward Zhang and the Lunatic’s eight year old son, Charlie Hodgson – sitting great with 490 points.

But they are followed closely by Tony Bisese, Greg Williams, Nick Kindig, Chris Franklin, Jason Lee, Dave Wagner, Will Shipley, Dominic Shaw, and Kynan Bush at 480 points, and another 11 people at 470.

In the Upset Pool, Donna Woodburn is still well ahead at 233 points.  Will Shipley has moved into 2nd with 211 – followed by Greg Williams (208), Jason Lee (203), Clay Holloway (202) and Brian Lawton (202).

The Lunatic is currently being thoroughly stomped – as his picks are both in the middle of the pack (best in a tie for 101st place).

But for those of you in the middle, remember the points go up from here on in – so if you have some wilder picks still alive to make it to the Final Four, you have chances to move up.

For those of you who might have hung you hopes on some of the surprising upset teams like Villanova, Virginia, Kansas, Iowa State and Baylor and have already ripped up your bracket – don’t forget – there is always the Second Chance Pool.  That’s right, there is that chance for redemption to start over so don’t forget to login and fill out your second chance entry!

Virginia looked like they got a huge opportunity on Saturday night, when fellow ACC school, NC State took out the #1 seed in the East.  Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, their game on Sunday was against Michigan State.

The Spartans jumped out quickly to a 15-4 lead and never looked back.   While the Cavaliers managed to close the gap through their amazing defense, the Michigan State’s defense was just as good.  And Travis Trice hit a big three pointer with about 2 and a half minutes left to give the Spartans a large enough lead to hold off Virginia.

So, for the first time since 2004, a region will have neither of its top 2 seeds in the Sweet 16.   Congratulations to Michigan State on a fantastic victory.

What a fun way to end the evening – even if it did go a little late.  But Notre Dame came out in the overtime period hitting three pointers, and managed to put away a pesky Butler team.

Congratulations to Gregg Williams – who is our current leader at 400 points – followed closely by 20 points by Gus Woodburn, Chris Franklin, Jason Lee, Kynan Bush, and Debbe Evans.

In the Upset Pool – Gus Woodburn is leading with 205 points, followed by Greg Williams and Jason Lee.

But there is lots more basketball to be played.

What a crazy ending to regulation in the Notre Dame / Butler game to end the night on Saturday.  Just really glad for Auguste from Notre Dame – he made a great rebound which seemed to send the game to overtime and then got called for a double dribble to set up the exciting final plays and blocked shot.

The Irish and Bulldogs keep providing an answer to each other – should be a fun overtime.

The first #1 seed has been taken out – and it happens during the first weekend.  North Carolina State withstood an amazing flurry from Villanova and the three point shooting of Darrun Hilliard, but Hilliard’s 9 points in the final 90 seconds wasn’t enough to catch the Wolfpack – who calmly hit their free throws and advanced to the Sweet 16!!!!

Fantastic win for the North Carolina State Wolfpack!

North Carolina State has done what Cincinnati and Ohio State could not do – unlike the earlier games where the underdog kept it close in the first half until watching the favorite pull away, the Wolfpack have take a 4 point lead into halftime and now have extended it to a 9 point lead with 11:30 to play.   Pretty exciting game!!!!!

The Wildcats move on in a very physical game.  Was laughing as I listened to the announcers trying to say that Cincinnati might have given teams a blueprint of how to beat Kentucky from how they played in the first half.

And maybe that is true – but basically, Kentucky’s starters shot poorly today, they started the game slowly, and even showed a little bit of surprising undisciplined play when they got caught up in the chippy play and got called for a technical foul.  And still, they were winning by 17 points until Cincinnati scored the last 4 points of the game when Kentucky was basically just running out the clock.

I sure hope this isn’t a coronation ceremony as the Wildcats destroy teams one by one.  And I am definitely looking forward to see what some of the more talented teams can do.  But this was not a road-map to how to beat Kentucky – Cincinnati kept playing that physical matchup zone, and watched the close game slowly move to a double digit defeat.