It is pretty clear that the Lunatic is out of practice with the sleep-deprivation of March. As I watched the start of the game between Loyola-Chicago and Oregon State, I felt happy as I made the last couple of updates to the website on payments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Happily, I got myself a snack and continued to happily enjoy the game. Then, I made a realization. I never revealed my second chance picks. Shame on the Lunatic. So, without any further delays, I will take advantage of halftime to reveal my picks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At first, I thought with all the upsets, I should go crazy with my upset picks. I was ready to have some teams make some unexpected runs. And then, I had a realization. With great power comes great responsibility. I have already ended Purdue’s and Illinois’ seasons. How can I ruin a double-digit team’s chance to because this year’s darling of the tournament? Lets face it – if our bracket is destroyed, we all want Cinderella to keep dancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, I changed my mind. I have already ruined the lives of fans from Gonzaga, Alabama and Baylor. So – I should only use my powers on the Midwest region, where I have already taken out Illinois. Unfortunately, if I pick the second chance, I have to ruin someone’s chances anyways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the West, Gonzaga will advance by beating USC. Figured USC beat Oregon in the regular season, that was the more likely event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the East, I hedged a little. I still have Alabama winning the region, but this time, I took Michigan to make it to the Elite 8 instead of Florida State. I took out the rest of the Big 10, might as well finish the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the South, I have Baylor beating Arkansas to get to the Final Four. As in the West, Arkansas beat Oral Roberts in the regular season – not to mention I couldn’t bear to take out a 15 seed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Midwest was the most difficult for me. I was so impressed with Loyola-Chicago, and remember their Final 4 run in 2018 – and so I took the Ramblers to advance over Oregon State. On the other Sweet 16 game, I took Syracuse to beat Houston – I have seen Syracuse do this so many times, just figured I had to pick at least one upset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, I had my longest debate. I am not a fan of Syracuse – Jim Boeheim is an amazing coach, but he has said so many things to bother me that I can’t support them. I thought very seriously about picking Syracuse to apply the Lunatic curse to them. But unfortunately for me, the Lunatic Curse is too smart for that. It knows that I would be picking them to knock them out. So, as much as I hated to do it, I picked the team I thought would win the Midwest – Loyola-Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Final Four, I have Gonzaga beating Alabama, Baylor beating Loyola-Chicago, and Gonzaga beating Baylor. I had Gonzaga, Alabama and Baylor in my initial sane picks – if I thought they were 3 of the best 4 teams in the country before the tournament, I don’t know what should change that opinion. And this way, I have only jinxed Loyola-Chicago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, as I look up at the game that has started its second half, I see Oregon State up 33-22 on the Ramblers. It is powerful – the Lunatic Curse. I am sorry to any fans of the Missouri Valley champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is pretty clear that the Lunatic is out of practice with the sleep-deprivation of March. As I watched the start of the game between Loyola-Chicago and Oregon State, I felt happy as I made the last couple of updates to the website on payments. Happily, I got myself a snack and continued to happily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2021-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2013,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions\/2013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}