Toledo. Marshall. Rockets. Thundering Herd. The D’Antoni offense. The whatever Toledo does.
It’s a fun one tonight in Huntington, and the NIT implications are ripe, with each trying to pull together an at-large case.
Best of luck, friends.
Elsewhere:
- Virginia Tech beat Clemson last night in the classic slightly-worse-team-winning-a-conference-game-at-home. Should’ve seen that coming.
- Minnesota took it on the chin, and the nose, and the jaw, and down in the stomach, and on the shoulders, and on the soles of their feet, and everywhere else from Illinois, and we commend the effort. That was an NIT-looking team.
- Alabama edged Furman in a thriller in Tuscaloosa. “Thriller in Tuscaloosa,” incidentally, is the name of some upcoming NITe Oats fan fic in which our hero tries to evade the NCAA’s henchmen after running afoul of Coach K.
- Loyola lost to Wisconsin, keeping Sister Jean right in our wheelhouse.
- Georgia Tech lost to Florida State, meaning we didn’t get to know how many piñatas and coolers full of candy Josh Pastner has at his disposal right now. The answer could be zero. It could be infinity.
- Keep an eye on St. Bonaventure, who beat Akron in Cleveland yesterday in their season debut. The Bonnies might be enough of a factor in the A-10 to end up our direction.
- The distribution of the vaccine is only good news for the NIT. Remember: This thing could still get canceled. It’s a terrifying possibility but one we must face. Stay vigilant. Eliminate the virus. Get vaccinated as many times as they’ll let you (disclaimer I am not a doctor and my editor has told me this isn’t how vaccines work).
- TCU goes to Stillwater tonight, and it looks like they’re gonna lose, and maybe Jamie Dixon’s sad about that but maybe he’s really happy. Because maybe he thinks it’ll help him hang out with us down the line. Maybe Jamie Dixon likes us.
- Richmond, Cincinnati, and SMU all play bad teams they should beat, and want to beat, for NIT purposes.
- Butler plays a good team they shouldn’t beat, and don’t want to beat, for NIT purposes.
- Notre Dame plays Duke, and Notre Dame wants to win this one for a whole bunch of reasons, but mostly so we can pour some coal into the engine on the Duke NIT Hype Train (although on second thought, Duke playing in the NIT might be what it takes for Coach K to get the NCAA to cancel this thing, so maybe we want Duke good).
- Pitt plays Miami, who’s still without Chris Lykes and has played very poorly (for three halves) and very well (for one half) without him.
