I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend without meaningful college basketball. Today, of course, does not feature a single recognized men’s college basketball game. If someone tells you otherwise, you have my permission and encouragement to frame them for embezzlement. With little to speak of on the hardwood, then, we turn to the tarmac:
1. All NIT roads lead through the Panama City airport.
I think everyone should attend the NIT Final Four, and I think all who can should connect through Panama City airport at the end of Spring Break season. What’s that? You don’t think a public transportation facility can embody the feeling of an overwhelmed mother of teens? You don’t think it’s worth it to make your flight to Indianapolis involve that tired mom facility, a nine-gate airport overrun with warm half-drunk beers? We love you, dear reader, but you are wrong about at least two things.
My favorite thing about the Panama City airport is not that it was inexplicably and unexpectedly the optimal place for my Southwest flight to connect. My favorite thing is not that there’s only one restaurant and that it’s surprisingly not that overpriced. My favorite thing is not that there either aren’t any water bottle filling stations or that I was unable to find them, a discomfort turned blessing which allowed me to later sit comfortably on the Indianapolis runway for ninety minutes while the heavens flashed their approval of the NIT.
My favorite thing about the Panama City airport is that at least at Gate 2, they line up all the wheelchaired passengers nose to tail, like they’re in the starting lane at a go-kart track.
Hey Ed, you wanna talk to Dolores for the 45 minutes before your flight starts boarding?
TOO BAD.
Five of ‘em. Five wheelchairs. Stacked up like a rollercoaster ready to fly down that jet bridge and loop-de-loop off into the sky.
The first two—I’ve named them Ed and Dolores—were older. Ed wore a High Life hat which confused me because it was not the Miller High Life colors.
The next two—I did not name them, I had no occasion to name them—were older than Ed and Dolores. I didn’t catch what they were wearing.
The last one—I’m gonna call him Pete—was a little bit younger than me and had a big wrap around his leg. His fiancée had one hand on the wheelchair. Unnecessarily. The only direction Pete could go was backwards, and if he did that he was going straight into a styrofoam box full of remnants of a blackened shrimp taco.
I wonder if Pete’s fiancée looked at Ed and Dolores and recognized the circularity of time.
We’re all going to the wheelchair log flume eventually.
Until the final NIT calls us home.
2. “Final Four” Coach Allegations – An Incomplete List!
Need evidence that the NIT is morally superior to the NCAA T*urnament? The Imitation Tournament’s Final Four is set, and it features…
- A coach who once turned in a fellow coach for recruiting violations only to later earn himself a show–cause for recruiting violations.
- A coach who recently asked his players to refer to him as “White Mike,” more or less directly challenging Michael Jordan’s basketball throne. Could Michael Jordan have become Michael Jordan with the added hurdle of being a white guy from Northbrook? Messed up that anybody would ask.
- A coach who ended the long, storied history of Indiana basketball because he couldn’t stay off his cell phone. (Relatable, honestly.)
- A coach who may or may not be a giant pervert. (I have no idea if he is or isn’t.*)
Meanwhile, the Original Tournament has only upstanding citizens coaching its last four teams standing. Real “don’t make threats at the DMV even though the DMV is taking an unreasonably long time” kind of people. Just saying.
3. What to Do If You’re Ever Sitting Courtside and a Scuffle Falls on Top of You
This happened last night between the Timberwolves and the Pistons, and I guess the Pistons have finally learned their lesson, because it went into the crowd and then nothing happened.
I blame the fans.
If you’re at the bottom of the NBA pile and you’re not escalating things, you’re part of the problem. I’m not saying you have to sucker punch Naz Reid, but at least give him a wet willie. Things will get exciting, and nobody will realize it was you who did it. NBA players always expect wet willies from one another. Wet willies from other NBA players are their greatest fear. But they never expect them from a fan.
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*I do think it’s interesting that some big-time journalists try to pretend Golden was totally exonerated, and others act like there’s no way Golden could be innocent, and who says what is directly correlated to who has and who lacks a working relationship with Golden and his friends.
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