Our NIT Bracketology is once again updated, and we’ve got some folks to welcome to the party. So let’s get right to the NITuation:
Moving Out: Indiana, SMU, Georgia, Pitt, TCU, Vermont (auto-bid)
Sorry, guys. Staying in the NIT picture takes some work.
Just kidding we aren’t upset with Indiana. Beating Iowa’s always hilarious. One time, back home, one of my buddies talked to an Iowa fan who’d gone on a vacation to Austria. She said, “We really liked Vienna. It was like the Iowa City of Europe.” Indiana, we get it. You had to do it. And you’re not too far out of the field! As we’ll see in a few blurbs here.
We also aren’t upset with Vermont. There isn’t a lot Vermont’s been able to do to hold ground in the A-East over the last few weeks, considering they haven’t played since January 17th. We might not get the Catamounts this year. That’s ok. It’s one of the lesser tragedies of Covid. For us. Big one for them.
For the rest of you…not great. SMU, we know, how were you to know beating East Carolina of all teams would be what pushed you out? Still, you’ve played with fire for too long.
Georgia: You can’t mess around with Vanderbilt if you’re going to make the NIT. I don’t care that you’re 12-6. You’ve only got three wins over NIT-caliber competition, and two of those didn’t exist before you dropped out and made room for Mississippi.
Pitt: This is chickens coming home to roost. We may have forgotten that you lost to one of the St. Francises, but our model didn’t, and your team sheet won’t.
TCU: Similarly to Georgia, can’t mess around with a bad team when you’re on the cut line. Sorry, Jamie (Jamie Dixon, not the Jamie who reads this blog earnestly and is one of our most loyal supporters). Rules are rules.
Moving In: Colorado State, Drake, Notre Dame, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Stephen F. Austin (auto-bid)
Now, to celebrate.
*smash cut to Mike Brey dancing and trying to get Coach K to dance with him and Coach K turning away and strangling a grad assistant*
Yes, Notre Dame is in the projected field, and Duke didn’t fall out with yesterday’s result. The ACC’s building quite the quorum there in the middle seed lines.
Drake’s here, and we’ve been expecting them, and we tried to do the kiss-on-both-cheeks but they weren’t having it even though that can’t spread Covid because it’s literally figurative in this instance.
Colorado State’s double-dipping, sitting in the bid thief slot, which is especially exotic given Colorado State’s a potential bid thief itself! Could Colorado State thieve its own bid?!
We love ourselves the Mississipees, except for Mississippi, which makes us uncomfortable and pissed because of all the slavery glorification still going on up there. But the guys from Stark Vegas? Love ‘em. Always love the ag school. We really thought our friends the Bulldogs were dead a bunch of times this year. To see them alive, in our arms…words fail.
And finally, Stephen F. Austin’s here and they’re looking for Duke and Coach K is trying to find his way out of a maze of passages in the labyrinth of the NIT but nothing he’s doing is working and my maniacal cackling is growing louder and louder and the darkness is closing in. ESPN2. 9:00 PM on a weeknight. An NIT First Round game.
Possible Automatic Bids Who Are on NIT Turf But Are Too Likely to Win Their Conference Tournament
Still just Marshall. Would project as a four-seed.
Close, on the High Side
The bubble upon which those that miss the NIT go to the other tournament, and are also into gross stuff like not flushing public toilets after they pee.
(the teams on the left are closer to the NIT, for each line, than the teams on the right)
Close: Penn State, UNC, Seton Hall, Minnesota
Closer: Stanford, SMU, VCU, Indiana
Closest: Maryland, UConn, LSU
Close, on the Low Side
Ooh just missed us this time! Call us again and we’ll consider picking up.
Say. I’ve heard two uses in the last few weeks of that prank answering machine greeting in which the answering machine owner pretends to have picked up the phone. One on a podcast. One on television. Is that coming back? Should I get an answering machine? For parties? When the pandemic is over, of course.
Close: Providence, Northwestern, Abilene Christian, San Francisco
Closer: UAB, Davidson, Wright State, Dayton
Closest: Utah, Pitt, TCU, Georgia
***
And that’s the NITuation.
Other notes for today:
- Michigan State won a big one over Penn State last night to keep their head above water.
- Kentucky lost to Arkansas, and it’s getting really hard to see any sort of path for them.
- St. John’s was getting just a bit of buzz to pass the NIT, and then they lost in overtime at Hinkle. They’re serious this time.
- VCU beat Dayton. Not quite a murder-suicide, but close.
- South Carolina came so close to beating Alabama, which would’ve pushed them into the NITuation if not the projected bracket itself.
- St. Bonaventure beat La Salle. Nobody can lose to La Salle when they want to, but as soon as they don’t want to, boom: La Salle beats them. Philosophers call this the duality of La Salle. I don’t know what duality means.
- Georgia Tech hosts Virginia today. Dangerous times.
- Mississippi State could use a home win against LSU today. LSU could use a road loss against Mississippi State.
- Mississippi’s got a big opportunity to shock the world and shock no computers, hosting Missouri in Oxford.
- Remember Northwestern? No? That purple team from near Chicago that’s technically in the Big Ten but is a way better school than everyone else and also a seemingly less happy school than everyone else? You know…started out hot and then lost nine straight and still haven’t stopped that losing streak? Yes. Them. The Pat Fitzgerald school but basketball. They host Indiana this evening.
- Providence hosts UConn. Opportunity there too. I’m gonna say it. Lotta opportunity tonight.
- Big A-10 action with Rhode Island visiting Saint Louis. URInation really torpedoed itself with that loss to UMass on Saturday. I think I missed that when it happened.
- Big AAC action with Wichita State visiting UCF. Does the ghost of Tacko Fall still haunt Addition Financial Arena?
- Big SoCon action with Furman visiting UNC-Greensboro. That race is tight over there. All the classics are involved (those two, Wofford, ETSU).
- Other teams that could do something big for themselves tonight but are massive underdogs so don’t get their own bullet: Marquette. Georgia. Ok that’s it just two of the three Crean schools.
