Five games. Three that matter. One bracket that matters. One Selection Show for a different bracket. One NIT bracket at the end of the night. One NIT bracket challenge at the end of the end of the night. One tournament. One dream. One humanity, united in rapture before its glory.
What’s going to happen today:
12:00 PM EDT: Ivy League Tournament Championship (ESPN2)
Yale’s an NIT automatic bid with a loss. Cornell has a sliver of an NIT shot if Yale wins. More importantly, Cornell plays like it boofed gasoline. That’s the biggest reason to watch, honestly. Yale’s great and we’d love to have them in our favorite tournament, but Cornell is a spectacle.
1:00 PM EDT: Atlantic 10 Tournament Championship (CBS)
George Mason’s in the NIT with a loss. VCU probably is if they lose. VCU would probably be a 1-seed, but either one would get a home game in the first round. Remember: Ryan Odom’s dad once won three NIT’s in a seven-year stretch. That’s the kind of royalty you won’t find in the Crown.
3:00 PM EDT: AAC Tournament Championship (ESPN)
We’d watch this anyway, because UAB’s our friend and we love them, but there are far-reaching NIT implications here. If UAB wins, that could push Indiana or Xavier into the Crown, or Texas or San Diego State into the NIT. If UAB loses? They should make the NIT. They’re not 100% there, though.
6:00 PM EDT: NCAA T*urnament Selection Show (Illegal Streams Only)
I’m sorry, but we can’t give these guys the ratings. Either wait for the information to come out online or watch an illegal stream.
That said, this is big. This is where we not only find out who missed the NIT, but also who at least some of our 1-seeds are going to be. (Teams in the “First Four Out” [More like “First Four In,” am I right!!!] are NIT 1-seeds if they play in the NIT.)
~9:30 PM EDT: NIT Bracket Unveiling (The Internet™)
This will be on Instagram and Twitter/X, and I for one can’t wait. No show. Just graphics. No bullshit. Just information. If you’ve ever watched the NCAA T*urnament Selection Show and thought, “This is pointlessly long,” well have I got the tournament for you.
~10:30 PM EDT: NIT Bracket Challenge Unlocked
We’ll have the NIT Bracket Challenge up on our homepage (www.thebarkingcrow.com) as soon as we can get the bracket into that Google Form we use. And yes…we’re still using the Google Form. I know we promised something else but it didn’t make business sense to outsource it yet. We’d have to host it somewhere other than the site. Get enough entries, and we’ll hire someone to build it into our site next year. That’s the goal. Last year, we cleared one thousand. Let’s build on that.
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