“I wanna know: Have you ever seen (North Texas make it) rain?” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
I had the honor of attending the Texas Collegiate State Championship today, called elsewhere the NIT second round game between North Texas and Sam Houston State.
North Texas dominated.
These guys were on fire.
It was like watching the fastest gophers in the world flee for their lives: No matter the distance, every one ended up in the hole.
I bring this up to say that I’ve seen one of the eight quarterfinalists for myself, and based on that plus what I’ve observed on TV, I can confidently say that this is an outrageously good NIT field. Each team would be comfortably favored over Princeton, and six or seven would be favored even playing the Tigers on the road. That’s not something the NCA* *********t can say about its remaining teams. One of its remaining teams *is* Princeton.
Idiots.
Here’s the link to the scoreboard. Some notes on the NIT Bracket Challenge, with thoughts on the games themselves coming tomorrow:
- Jake Marsh becomes our leading celebrity, both by current score and max possible score. Jake has Wisconsin winning it all, while Alex Briseño and Mike Rutherford have Oklahoma State, DJ Bauer and Ethan Hennessy have North Texas, and Mike Ryan has Oregon. That means six celebrities still have their champions alive. The field is doing better than the celebs.
- Speaking of the field, NIT MADNESS is back into the lead, tied with ‘Vandy got Screwed.’ Unfortunately for each, their champions are out. Which brings us to ‘All NITe Long (All NITe),’ Timmy H, JGUNN75, and RatherDashing, all of whom are one point back of the lead and all of whom still have their champion in the field.
- Nobody picked Utah Valley to win it all, but the Wolverines are still here. Well, those ones are. The other Wolverines are still gone. No takebacks.
- Fargo beat Joe Stunardi. It’s official. Smart dog (dumb Joe).
Again, more thoughts on the games tomorrow, and then we’ll be ready in a big way for Tuesday and Wednesday’s quarterfinals. What a weekend. What a tournament. What a world.
