Holy moly, dear NIT friends. Holy moly.
I will concede that the action slowed as the evening went on. But when the action slowing consists of a last-minute Minnesota comeback and UCF and South Florida teaching us that they weren’t kidding about hating each other…
We were starting from a good place.
Last NITe, toNITe, and the Bracket Challenge. Let’s run through ‘em.
**
In order of how much these stirred my soul:
9. Virginia Tech 74, Richmond 58
In a beautiful tribute to its archrival, Virginia Tech opened this game by scoring two points in nine minutes. At the under-12 timeout, the Hokies were on pace to lose the game 45 to 18. But as any Virginian basketball follower can tell you, it’s the 45 there that’s important. Lynn Kidd went on a little run, Tech had the lead before the half, and Virginia basketball still runs through Blacksburg (sorry, JMU, but you failed to make the NIT). Mike Young. Our man.
8. Utah 84, UC Irvine 75
This got a little interesting towards the end—the 1-and-1 came for Keba Keita—but Carlson & Madsen PLLC got the ball in their hands and the Utes were through. We like Utah a lot (the program, the school, the state—the whole thing), so this next thing isn’t sadness about them, but: Bummed to not get a UC Irvine run out of these last two years. They’ve been knocking on the door for so long. Their College World Series appearances are always a blast. Gotta keep Derin Saran out of the portal.
7. North Texas 84, LSU 77
Who says UNT can’t score??
For the fourth time in their last seven games, the Mean Green broke 80, and if I may get a little numerical: Their kenpom offensive ranking is up from 148th on February 28th to 95th this morning. What happened on February 28th? North Texas’s second game with CJ Noland and Rubin Jones back.
LSU’s rally was a good one, but Noland had done enough. The defending champs are moving on.
6. Iowa 91, Kansas State 82
Sad way for Tylor Perry to go. We’ll always have last year, but it would’ve been great if he could’ve at least turned this into a race down the stretch.
Payton Sandfort was on fire during the first half. In the second, it was Ben Krikke time. Kansas State made one big run right after the break, but Iowa got it back together after the timeout and outpaced the Cats. Gonna be a lot of long white shooters in Salt Lake City this weekend, and NO THAT LIST DOES NOT INCLUDE PELLE LARSSON how dare you bring up that tournament in here.
5. Georgia 78, Xavier 76
A game which ended with a game-tying goaltending call being wiped off the board after Xavier rallied from 23 down? That’s our median game of the first round so far, in terms of what it brought the fans at home. What a tournament. Bangers only.
You have to feel for Lazar Djokovic on the Silas Demary Jr. layup that put Georgia up four. He tripped and still managed to block the shot, but he happened to block the shot straight off the backboard into the hoop. Also have to feel for Quincy Olivari, who told the broadcast he was so excited about playing back in his home state that he couldn’t sleep, then had a rough night shooting the basketball. Everything went wrong for Xavier, and Georgia did the thing Georgia’s been doing all year, with Mike White mixing and matching and finding enough to get folks excited. Not a bad win for the Dawgs. Not bad at all.
4. South Florida 83, UCF 77
Hand up, I didn’t realize how much these teams hated each other. This was a shit-talking extravaganza. Maybe I missed it because Tom Crean was still spitting facts on another screen, but the hard contact didn’t look that abnormal? It was just that every time it happened, it became another opportunity to talk more shit. Credit to the refs for keeping it from becoming a melee, I guess.
Kasean Pryor was that dude down the stretch, and it’s a bummer he’s not from Florida. He’d be a good Florida Man. Although I guess a lot of Florida Men aren’t originally from Florida. Florida and Florida Men find each other.
3. Ohio State 88, Cornell 83
This got nervy.
Cornell, playing without Chris Manon, stayed all over Ohio State. We expected the fast start. We did not expect the Big Red to keep coming back even when the Buckeyes put them down ten.
Shoutout to AK Okereke, who lost a tooth early in this one. Shoutout to Jamison Battle for putting enough buckets in the hoop. Not Ohio State’s best, but that’s not uncommon from contenders in the NIT’s first round. 2018 Penn State, 2019 Texas, and 2022 Xavier were all underwhelming in their openers. Ohio State’s not the favorite or anything, but struggling against the worst team (on paper) in the field without their best player is, traditionally, not that bad a sign.
2. Minnesota 73, Butler 72
That was so sad for DJ Davis.
If you missed it, the summary:
- Back and forth game all night, Butler trying to pull away but Minnesota—mostly through Dawson Garcia—keeping it close.
- Butler, up one, goes up three on a Jahmyl Telfort bucket with 39 seconds left. Minnesota calls a timeout.
- Minnesota goes down the court, gets into their set, Garcia takes the ball to the basket and scores. Back within one. 22 seconds on the clock.
- Butler moves the ball across half court, but Minnesota’s going for the steal, not the foul. Clock’s winding down. Davis picks up his dribble with about eleven on the clock. Butler has two timeouts, so even if he gets trapped, he can call time. But with four Gophers around him, he tries to pass it across the court to a fairly open Posh Alexander, and he telegraphs it. Parker Fox is in motion before the ball is thrown. Picked off.
- Elijah Hawkins makes a great play to corral Fox’s pass before crossing the baseline, and after Pierre Brooks blocks Cam Christie at the rim, Telfort is called for the foul on the Hawkins putback.
- Hawkins makes both free throws. Butler misses the last-second attempt. Season over. Home court Final Four dead.
Awesome, awesome win for Minnesota as a program, and that’s not even NIT speak. First postseason win in any tournament in five years, second since the 2014 championship. There were some haters making noise about Garcia and the portal, but the dude sure looked happy to be a Gopher last night.
Heartbreaker for Butler. No second NIT title yet for Thad Matta. Feel awful for Davis, a senior who had a tough NIT first round game last year too (was at UC Irvine for the loss at Oregon). Selfishly, I’m sad to not see Butler Blue driving around in his little car. Maybe I can talk him into making a Final Four appearance. I want to see that in person.
(Would love to know how Myron Medcalf ended up being the play by play guy for that game, by the way. Did a great job in the bits we heard at HQ. Just curious what happened. Medcalf and Tom Crean. The duo American didn’t know we needed.)
1. Boston College 62, Providence 57
Team of the NITe: Boston College.
Tense, tense game. Neither team led by more than four until the final basket. Back and forth, deliberate, every bucket a battle.
Providence was shorthanded, maybe partly by choice, but the Dunk drew the biggest crowd of the tournament so far, and this meant something to Boston College, who got their first postseason win since 2011. A coin toss right up until the Claudell Harris Jr. stepback three that gave BC the lead. (Almost disastrous missed dunk by Harris after the clinching steal. That would’ve been a real college basketball moment right there.)
The result of this, of course, is that Boston College is now New England’s premier college basketball team. How I’d rank the top six:
1. Boston College
2. UConn
3. Providence
4. Vermont but only once they finally win an NIT game
5. UMass-Lowell
6. UMass-UMass
HM. Brown
HM. Maine for managing to get mentioned so much around Cooper Flagg
***
This evening.
So we have an issue where I think ESPN+ only lets you stream three screens at once? Which only matters during the 8:00 hour, but we’ll be missing one half of UNLV/Princeton or App State/Wake. Just getting ahead of that one. I have enough beater computers to keep SMU/Indiana State on the air, but we’re going to be missing some things during that window.
This is a very NIT problem to have.
Saint Joseph’s at Seton Hall – 7:00 PM EDT, ESPN2
What we’re working with here:
- Saint Joe’s has only won two postseason games since losing the 2005 national championship to South Carolina.
- Seton Hall has five senior starters and Shaheen Holloway says they were the ones who made the call to play.
- Seton Hall’s playing this in Walsh Gym, their on-campus, 1,300-seater built in 1941. The game sold out almost immediately once tickets went on sale.
I’m excited for NIT Kadary Richmond. I’m excited for NIT Erik Reynolds. I’m excited for a game I think we’re going to describe as “special” when we remember the 2024 NIT. Whether it’s the start of a lot of those for Seton Hall or a one-night deal is what we’ll be finding out.
SMU at Indiana State – 7:00 PM EDT, ESPN+
Ok so I don’t know the bench limitation reasoning either, but hilarious move by the Sycamores to make their managers compete to sit there tonight. Perfect way to handle the whole thing.
Josh Schertz’s status is going to be the big story around the game, with Saint Louis a done deal if you believe internet institution Trilly Donovan, who is often early and correct. We’ve said it before, but it’ll be a good sign if it doesn’t get announced until Indiana State is done playing games. Parallels the McCasland situation last year going from North Texas to Texas Tech.
Virginia is going to be the other big story around the game, because the NCAA *ournament selection committee wanted them, Seton Hall, and Oklahoma all more than Indiana State. Us? We wanted Indiana State the whole way. We’ve been talking about Indiana State since 2023.
The risk for Indiana State, as we’ve said elsewhere, is that SMU punches them in the mouth. I don’t think anyone in the Missouri Valley plays as physically as SMU. SMU’s lost five of six, more by double figures than not, but they’re a crocodile of a basketball team. If you let them drag you in there with them, it’s gonna take a hell of a fight to get out.
This does appear to be The World vs. SMU. Live on ESPN+.
Loyola Chicago at Bradley – 7:00 PM EDT, ESPN+
Speaking of the world…World War 3, they say.
Loyola was in the MVC from 2013 through 2022, recently enough that Braden Norris and Tom Welch have played a lot of games against the team from Peoria. There’s been chatter about Kaboom! and his Harley. There’s been chatter about Brian Wardle breaking out the red suit. There’s been chatter about Sister Jean nuking Carver Arena. (That last one was from us.)
With only two seats still available (in the center court sections within the lower bowl), the atmosphere in Illinois is going to be intense. Many are calling this game bigger than Arch Madness.
Loyola’s a pretty big underdog. Keeping Dame Adelekun on the court and out of foul trouble’s always big for these guys, but especially against Malevy Leons and Darius Hannah. Braden Norris vs. Duke Deen is a good duel at the point. I believe Bradley’s only lost once as a favorite since December. Loyola, meanwhile, has rallied down the stretch.
Packed 7:00 tip slot.
UNLV at Princeton – 8:00 PM EDT, ESPN+
Princeton’s still young. Zach Martini and Matt Allocco are there, and everyone but Dalen Davis was around last year, but Xaivian Lee and Caden Pierce are kind of the cornerstones now and they’re just sophomores. That sweet spot where the potential still feels close to limitless and there’s no end in sight.
UNLV, meanwhile, has more last go-round guys. Kalib Boone, formerly of Oklahoma State. Keylan Boone, formerly of Oklahoma State and Pacific. Luis Rodriguez, formerly of Ole Miss. Justin Webster, formerly of Hawaii. Old, experienced team and then Dedan Thomas, the electric freshman from Las Vegas.
Two really different schools. Two really different programs. Two really different teams. Linked by one common era of national notoriety. Fun one.
Appalachian State at Wake Forest – 8:00 PM EDT, ESPN+
Wake’s still the NIT favorite this morning, which is unusual. Usually, after the first night of games, the teams a round ahead have more of a leg up. But with no 1-seeds playing last night and Ohio State playing poorly, Wake still stacks up better than the Bucks. Likeliest Final Four team. Likeliest championship appearer. Likeliest champion at something like 6-to-1 vig-less, real world odds.
They are favored by single digits against a team who won 25 games this year against Division I teams.
The thing about the NIT, this year more than ever, is that nobody is ever safe. It’s always been this way—the emotional challenge of the first game has always made nothing off-limits—but it’s even more this way right now with the low-majors gone. Wake’s going to have to show up, because you know App State will. This is an App State team who beat Auburn and went 16–2 in conference play. The Sun Belt isn’t great once you get past its top two, but App State is in that top two, and the question for a still somewhat young Wake team is whether they rally around each other and their coach at the tail end of a horrifically hard year off the court or if they’re too down to get it done. It’s hard to win in the NIT. In a different way from how it’s hard to win in a conference tournament.
Wake did play pretty well in the 2022 NIT under similar circumstances, but that was a senior-heavy team.
San Francisco at Cincinnati – 9:00 PM EDT, ESPN+
Don’t put it past San Francisco, who’s bound to beat someone good eventually, right? San Francisco is 0–20 in its last 20 games against teams who finished the year in the kenpom top 50. The last time they beat a team who matches that description was November 13th, 2021, when they downed Davidson in front of four thousand at the Chase Center. Twenty straight losses against good teams. Twenty straight.
Cincinnati, meanwhile, is a good team. Lost both their opportunity games in nonconference, lost a bad home game to Oklahoma State, but a much better team than a Virginia or a McNeese, and a better team than South Carolina. Cincinnati’s one of the best teams in this tournament. Not particularly smooth offensively (CJ Fredrick’s absence has been a death sentence at times), but good enough elsewhere to make it work.
The matchup between Jonathan Mogbo and the Cincinnati bigs is going to be a sight. Viktor Lakhin and Aziz Bandaogo each have at least two inches on Mogbo, as listed, and both are in the top 300 nationally in block rate (credit kenpom). San Francisco’s seen height—this year’s Santa Clara was lengthy—but Lakhin and Bandaogo are better defensive bigs than anyone in the ACC (shoutout EvanMiya for the confirmation there). If Mogbo can protect the glass on the other end, the Dons should have a good chance, but—excuse me for this— that’s going to be a tall task.
VCU at Villanova – 9:00 PM EDT, ESPN2
And then there’s the Big East’s first round finale. We were worried about Villanova’s guys maybe deciding to rest, not having a great pulse on Kyle Neptune’s culture, but whether thanks to Neptune or the culture Jay Wright left or their own competitive fire, there aren’t any “injuries” tonight for the Wildcats. Only real injuries are leaving their mark. Eric Dixon and Tyler Burton and Justin Moore and TJ Bamba and all the rest of them are going to play.
VCU? It’s got the NIT pedigree with Ryan Odom. Another strong defensive team with a questionable offense, more in Cincinnati’s image (lacking the offensive firepower) than Villanova’s (a mildly inexplicable mess at times). The Rams, like SMU, will probably try to play a crocodile kind of game. Muck it up. Stay in guys’ faces. Make it feel like a game finishing at 11:15 PM local in front of what could be a thin crowd.
I do think there’s an element with Villanova, if I’m reading the situation correctly, where fans aren’t as frustrated with the players as they are with Neptune for not making more out of what he has. Do players win NIT’s? It’s been about 50/50 between good players/good coaches the last seven or eight years.
**
Congratulations to Troney12, the only remaining perfect entry in our NIT Bracket Challenge. Thank you to the one thousand of you who submitted entries. Pretty fun to say that number on this little NIT blog of ours. Like public urination, the NIT is going places the people in charge don’t want us to go. Look out.
Top dog last night (i.e., leading rebounder) was Sandfort, with twelve. He carries the lead into tonight, and possibly into the second round.
