Hello again.
NIT Talk
The first two quarterfinals go down tonight, and the high-level view is that each game is up for the taking. St. Bonaventure’s a narrow underdog on the road at Virginia (7:00 PM EDT, ESPN). Vanderbilt’s a narrow underdog on the road at Xavier (9:00 PM EDT, ESPN). As we discussed earlier today, both in our simulation readout and our bets (bets of the year are in there if you can still get them), this has turned out to be the softer side of the bracket. It wasn’t designed this way or anything, that’s just how it happened. If you trust KenPom (and we do), the four better teams are playing tomorrow night, the four poorer teams are playing tonight, and the schedule lines up with the bracket, meaning tonight’s winners will play one another in one semifinal and tomorrow night’s winners will play in the other. All of that together means there’s a good chance that the eventual title game favorite is playing tomorrow night, and that the championship spread might be wider than any one tonight or tomorrow or Tuesday.
SMU, North Texas, Mizzou
The latest on the coaching changes is that Tim Jankovich is retiring at SMU (sounds like he was pushed out but I haven’t looked too close), Grant McCasland (of North Texas) is the favorite to replace him, and Dennis Gates is officially going to be the new guy at Mizzou. We’ll see if the McCasland hire materializes in Dallas, but Gates is a fine hire for the Tigers. It’s hard to know how well he’ll do there, but he did turn the Cleveland State program around from a disastrous place, getting to a competitive spot in the Horizon League. I think the issue, for Mizzou fans, is that he’s only coming from a low-major and he hasn’t proven himself there the way the conference’s other hires (Todd Golden, Matt McMahon, Chris Jans) have at mid-majors. We’ll see.
Brennan Davis’s Knee Should Be Ok
Cubs fans with an eye on the future can breathe a little easier, as x-rays on Brennan Davis’s knee came back negative. He should be back soon enough, and seems likely to start the minor league season on time or close to it. Hard to see this being much of a setback for his development.
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Viewing schedule tonight is just those NIT games for us. Best of luck to all invested, emotionally and otherwise.
