Today could be the day. Or, given our NIT Bracketology release cadence, Monday could be the day. But today could be the day that leads to Monday.
Duke’s playing at Louisville this afternoon. If they lose, and if they lose by more than a handful, there’s a very real chance they’ll show up in our NIT Bracketology at the beginning of this coming week.
Brace yourself for elation.
Other notes for today:
- Stanford’s trying to drop in themselves, pseudo-hosting UCLA in Santa Cruz. Wonder if those count as home games.
- Syracuse hosts Virginia Tech. I wonder if it makes Jim Boeheim mad to see people younger than him succeeding. When I wrote that, I meant at basketball coaching, but I now also wonder if it applies to all other professions as well.
- Maryland goes to Minnesota. I’d tell the Terps to not do anything crazy, but everybody knows that you don’t say that to turtles.
- South Carolina gets Auburn in Columbia. Pretty good fodder for a team trying to climb into the picture.
- UNC hosts N.C. State. Duke’s thinking about it, Tar Heels…just saying.
- Northwestern and Penn State show down in State College in a big one on the NIT bubble.
- Dayton goes to VCU. Just good, clean, NIT-quality action. A taste of March.
- Saint Mary’s plays at San Francisco in the NIT Bubble Game of the Day.
- Arkansas plays at Vanderbilt. Providence plays at Villanova. Pitt plays at Wake Forest. SMU plays at UCF. Georgia Tech plays at Virginia. Why are all these most-likely-inconsequential games featuring NIT-projecting teams on the road???
- Marquette hosts DePaul. There we go. There’s a home game.
- There are probably some automatic-bid-relevant games going on, but the list is so long on Saturdays, so we’re gonna do a “guide yourself” for those. If you’re curious if a mid or low-major game matters, look at the conference’s standings, then go to KenPom (you don’t need a subscription for this) and check if the team playing is better than the other teams in the league. If the conference lead is at stake and/or the team playing is the best in the league, the game is automatic-bid-relevant. To practice, check how Georgia State’s loss last night impacted the Sun Belt picture.
