Look.
When Kentucky moves in or out of our NIT Bracketology, we’re going to focus on them. Yes, we’re excited for you, Boise State and BYU. You’ve been with us a long time, and one-seeds would be a fitting tribute to your perfect good-not-greatness. But we don’t get Kentucky every year.
The Wildcats are back. They line up as a five-seed in this week’s projection, directed towards St. Mary’s in the first round and playing in the Boise State Region. They’re not quite where they want to be. But they’re pretty close. And their surge included an assist to Florida, who we find as a two-seed in the BYU Region.
Other notes for today:
- We’re too far away to take the bracket seriously, but we’re going to do that anyway. Oklahoma/Tulsa in the second round? TCU/SMU? NC State/South Carolina? The rivalries we don’t think exist but we’d like to exist, which makes us think they could get particularly nasty (like ULL/LSU in 2018).
- Kentucky can’t rest on the laurels of this morning’s news. They’ve got Alabama in town, and while losing might be fine for still making the NIT, they probably don’t want to get blown out.
- UNC and Syracuse aren’t immune to our charms, and tonight’s loser is going to get a long look from our model the next time around. Best of luck, old angry man. And you as well, old charming man.
- The SEC is loaded with NITalent, and it’s hard to find a better encapsulation of that than tonight’s Mississippi/Florida showdown. Thoroughly uninspiring. We love it.
- Providence has to be confused, having moved out of our projected field after losing twice over these seven days, but they get a chance to prove they mean it, going on the road against Marquette. Marquette, for its part, could use a win to stay above would-this-team-play-in-the-CBI territory.
- Miami’s hanging around, but they could really use a win at Boston College. Don’t know if Chris Lykes is healthy or not. Burnley just kicked off. I’m distracted and not doing my due diligence.
- The SEC isn’t the only conference that can show off. Oklahoma hosts TCU, and it’s hard to conceive of a game that stirs up less emotion. The Big 12 can do it all these days.
- Finally, we don’t want to get our hopes up too high, but Joe Kelly’s alma mater, UC-Riverside, is visiting our hated enemy, Andy Enfield. Send him our way, Highlanders. Send him our way.
