Well, well, well.
Kentucky is here to stay.
And by that, I mean, they might miss the NIT. Sounds like a real mess over there. Though we should note that this dude retracted the Clarke thing—not the part where Calipari nuked him (sounds like he did), but the part where he left the court early (Clarke stayed on the bench).
Anyway, hope they figure it out. But just enough that we get John Calipari accepting the NIT trophy and talking about how great the NIT is while I sidle up to him and say, “Hey man, wanna know a good way to stick it to the NCAA for vacating those wins from Memphis?”
Other NIT notes:
- Louisville might get some NIT buzz after yesterday’s walloping by Wisconsin, but don’t buy it. The Cardinals aren’t that bad. Weird roster day for them.
- Arizona lost a great one to Stanford. Great in terms of both excitement and what it did for the Wildcats’ NIT chances.
- Dayton beat Mississippi narrowly. Also a good game. The people love these two. Get me vaccinated Lane Kiffin firing the people up for a second round NIT game in Oxford. Please, fates. I don’t ask for much (actually if I get one ask I’ve got other higher priorities, so hit me up).
- Butler did, indeed, lose to Indiana. No surprises from the Bulldogs. We like that about them.
- Cincinnati got rocked by Georgia, raising questions about whether Cincinnati could…*miss* the NIT and whether Georgia could…*make* it?
- Winthrop rolled over Furman. Bit of a surprise there. Hurts Furman’s at-large chances but if they were in the at-large picture they would’ve had to lose the SoCon, in which case they probably wouldn’t be in the at-large picture, so kind of a non-factor but we wanted to give credit to Winthrop. Rock Hill is one of the largest cities in South Carolina.
- Western Kentucky dropped Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Dancing the dance, we are.
- Saint Mary’s held Colorado State to 33 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) points. Of course, they only scored 53. And it was slow, but not that slow. They’re coming for us. They’re coming for us all.
- UConn and Creighton have tipped, with UConn trying to avoid a good win.
- Big one between Saint Louis and Minnesota. SLU’s pretty far from us, but they’ve got a lot of mines to navigate on that schedule. Would actually be a nice win for the Gophers to get themselves a win-loss cushion, though there are those questions about how many they can afford to win.
- Marquette tries to follow up a bad loss to Seton Hall with an ok loss at Xavier. Xavier tries to pump the brakes on a train that has slid well past the NIT station in recent weeks.
- Speaking of Seton Hall, they host Providence today, looking for a little course correction after that Marquette win.
- Northwestern’s got a sneaky NIT shot and would make that clear with an upset of Michigan State tonight in Evanston. Will it happen? I would guess not. But I am not the NIT fates.
- Colorado would like to fix some things, by which I mean they’d like to lose today’s Las Vegas-located nonconference game against Pac-12 rival Washington. How did this get on the schedule, exactly?
- As always, we’ll enjoy Georgetown playing St. John’s, even if it doesn’t matter for us practically, and we’ll enjoy the Grand Canyon/San Francisco undercard to that Colorado/Washington game, if only because of how enchanting Grand Canyon and San Francisco are.
- Wright State started Horizon League play with a win over Detroit Mercy. The Raiders try to double up today. Wright State’s a frequenter of the NIT picture, and the Horizon League has that notable NIT automatic bid streak they’re trying (i.e., trying not) to keep alive. So yeah, the HoLo’s still on our radar.
