Kentucky seems to have slipped through our fingers, but don’t fret—another blue-blood (?) might be heading our way.
The cone of uncertainty’s large right now, but Michigan State has played themselves at least into the fringe of the NIT picture, with a lot of uncertainty over where they’ll land in tomorrow’s NIT Bracketology (I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a conversation in days that didn’t include this question). Tonight, they have the chance to make their intentions clear. Beat Minnesota, in Minneapolis, and we’ll know Sparty was just messing around with the prospect of greatness, or at the least is unsure. Lose, and it’s confirmed they want us.
We can’t wait.
Other NIT notes of note:
- Providence took two overtimes to beat DePaul yesterday, a discouraging start to the Blue Demons’ NIT campaign but an act of further promise for that of Providence: A game in which the Friars simultaneously avoided a bad loss and showed that they aren’t very good. Well done, Mr. Cooley.
- Colorado goes to Tucson tonight, where they’ll either lend an assist to Sean Miller’s Madison Square Garden ambitions or move moderately closer to the picture themselves. To recap where each team stands: Arizona’s best win came over Eastern Washington by three points at home. Colorado has only lost once, it was to Tennessee, and besides that they’ve been shithousing teams with few exceptions.
- In MVC action, poor Northern Iowa—someone we put a lot of hope into—has yet to beat a Division-I team, and while the rest were perfectly understandable, yesterday’s 20-point home loss to Missouri State brought the house of cards crashing down. As far as that watershed is concerned, consider Drake to be Loyola’s biggest foil for the time being.
- Maryland’s got a risky one at Wisconsin. Not a lot that can be gained by the 5-3 (0-2) Terps.
