In yesterday’s Notes, I asked whether it would be better for the NIT to have Indiana State or Cincinnati in its Final Four. I did technically land on the right answer, but the fact I even asked the question is a humbling moment, looking back on it. In front of the second-biggest crowd the tournament’s seen so far this year (Sunday’s in Terre Haute was larger, last night’s in Columbus was only a little bit smaller), Indiana State punched its ticket to Hinkle Fieldhouse. It’s a good thing they got one. Because this morning, no tickets are available for the NIT semifinals through the NCAA website. The only way to get there is to punch.
This doesn’t mean the NIT semifinals are fully sold out (it’s unclear what the deal is with the full semifinals/championship package), and even if they are, there are plenty of tickets available on resale sites. But a large share of Terre Haute is going to migrate to Indianapolis on Tuesday night, and even beyond that, Indianapolis locals are chomping at the bit to get to the game.
This is the part I underestimated yesterday.
This is why I’m ashamed.
We had a good read on how excited Indiana State fans would be about their team making the NIT Final Four. What I forgot about—and again, I’m ashamed of this—was how much non-Indiana State people living in Indiana would get behind a great Indiana-based basketball team, especially if that basketball team wasn’t from one of the state’s four power conference programs, between which bad feelings do fester. Indiana State? A no-brainer to be Indiana’s favorite basketball team. Hoosiers love basketball. Hoosiers love college basketball. In most states, college basketball fans are a tiny caste. In Indiana, they run the world.
So of course the state of Indiana is head over heels for Indiana State. Of course Hinkle Fieldhouse will sell out for Tuesday night’s games. This is why we’ve been excited about an Indianapolis NIT Final Four since the beginning, and why I’m kicking myself so hard for my error yesterday. In 49 states, it’s just basketball. But this is Indiana. Indiana State, to be specific.
**
Last NITe:
Georgia 79, Ohio State 77
It looked like Ohio State had done it. Trailing by double digits multiple times in the second half, Ohio State had launched a 17–0 run, igniting the Schottenstein Center and seemingly finally burying the NIT’s peskiest underdog.
Then, Blue Cain hit a three.
Blue Cain caught our eye in the first college basketball game of the season, that one between Georgia and Oregon on that Monday afternoon in November. How could he not? A opossum-like creature with the name of Blue Cain is exactly what we want in Southern college basketball. We didn’t expect this level of foreshadowing by the universe, though. We didn’t expect Cain to be such a main character over the final minutes of the first NIT quarterfinal, minutes in which he scored five points himself, assisted on another three, and pulled down three crucial rebounds, one of which he immediately and critically turned over in a melee on the sideline across from the scorer’s table. Cain might not have been the player of the game, but along with Noah Thomasson, the game ran through him.
It was interesting that Jake Diebler seemed to be hunting a three on both of Ohio State’s two end-of-game out-of-bounds plays. It was the right move. If you’re down two and overtime comes with a 50/50 win probability, you’re better off with an average three-point look than an average two-point look as long as your three-point percentage is more than half your two-point percentage. But it wasn’t what you’d expect from many college basketball coaches, and it’ll be interesting to watch next year to see if Diebler’s a numbers guy or if this was just the NIT, something which makes coaches more willing to get aggressive, like how football coaches call more trick plays in bowl games.
Right or wrong, two straight solid looks hit the rim, and after an unexpected thriller full of runs and Buckeye alley-oops, Georgia moved on to only the third NIT Final Four in its history, one where it’ll be hunting its first ever NIT Championship. Mike White might have found his fit. This is a pesky, pesky bunch.
Indiana State 85, Cincinnati 81
This game had everything, and this second half really had it all. At one point, Wes Miller looked like a groundhog out of a horror movie, prowling a crowded court with cheeks inflamed and eyes ablaze, hunting a referee after a Robbie Avila push on Aziz Bandaogo’s back went uncalled.
Bandaogo, for the second straight year, was an electric piece of the NIT quarterfinals in front of a raucous mid-major crowd. The difference this time was that Bandaogo was a visitor, and that Bandaogo lost the game. Still, the callback to the events in Orem last March warmed our hearts. Aziz Bandaogo will always be an NIT hero, whether he has eligibility left or not (I’m really struggling to keep track this offseason).
Simas Lukošius had a big night for the Bearcats himself, and Dan Skillings was everywhere, and Jizzle James did not regress at all, despite some so-called experts (I’m talking about Joe Stunardi in yesterday’s bets) putting that thought into the universe.
The NITe, however, was about Indiana State, and with Robbie Avila finding his shooting touch, the Sycamores were close to the best version of themselves. Jayson Kent, the tournament’s MVP so far, didn’t miss a shot. Ryan Conwell kept his strong NIT going. Even Derek Vorst got into the action, his brief but meaningful first half minutes a hint that Josh Schertz may have found another in the Robbie Avila mold.
According to Chad Lindskog of Gannett/USA Today, Schertz has said he won’t talk about other jobs until this Indiana State run is done, having lost in the Division II semifinals in 2021 after accepting the Indiana State job while still at Lincoln Memorial. The unsaid part there is that his agent is presumably deeply in contact with multiple schools, and that his agent presumably has a great idea of what Schertz wants and is actively in touch with Schertz. But you had to wonder, watching the Terre Haute crowd lose its collective mind as the Sycamores surged ahead last night with seven minutes to play:
Are we sure Saint Louis is a better job than Indiana State?
**
ToNITe:
UNLV at Seton Hall – 7:00 PM EDT, ESPN2
More Walsh Gymnasium. God blesses us, and he does it with Walsh Gymnasium.
UNLV’s been wiggling into our hearts lately. They’re a silly group. They’re playing through injuries. They’re a bunch of older guys and one stud freshman in Dedan Thomas, and that’s the kind of recipe that plays. UNLV is a really, really likable basketball team.
But Seton Hall just has that dog.
The NIT is an easy place to fall victim to recency bias. Seton Hall played in the first game of the NIT second round. UNLV played in the last. A lot has happened since the last time we saw Seton Hall play.
But the fact of the matter is that Seton Hall is an experienced group of gamers who want to keep playing basketball, and who are good enough to make that wish a reality. UNLV is lovable, and this cross-country odyssey to and from and to New Jersey again is a great plot. But the Rebels are banged up, and the Pirates are out to prove something. UNLV’s up against it. Should be a sensation in the early hour.
VCU at Utah – 9:00 PM EDT, ESPN2
In the NITecap, and at the conclusion of probably the best NIT round (I love the quarterfinals—they almost always deliver), comes a game upon which many are sleeping. VCU? Utah? Not exactly main characters in the college basketball season the way Indiana State, Ohio State, and Seton Hall all were. But this Utah team is a riot to watch, they’ve got some veterans who are absolutely of the type that deserves and expects to end this with a championship, and there’s reason to believe the Huntsman Center will get going.
Utah’s NIT history involves a lot of near misses. They took down Kentucky in the championship in 1947, but they’ve reached three Final Fours since and lost in all three, twice in the championship contest. There was some thought after 2022 that Western teams were struggling at Madison Square Garden because of travel and/or crowd factors, and I don’t know if a pivot to Indiana State’s backyard will really help any of that, but it at least shakes up the bottle. Utah has a lot of tragedy to avenge.
VCU? This is a homecoming of sorts for three key figures in the program. Both Max Shulga and Sean Bairstow came with Ryan Odom last offseason when he left Utah State for the Commonwealth, and while Logan and Salt Lake City are different places, they’re only an hour and a half apart. Out by the desert, an hour and a half isn’t much. Add in the storyline where Ryan Odom’s dad is the only three-time NIT champion since Joe Lapchick won his fourth, back in the 60s, and there’s a lot of personal meaning behind this for these Rams.
Who would be better for the NIT? We’re not asking that again. Partly because we don’t have to. Indiana State is an NIT dream come true.
**
Nobody out of our 1,011 NIT Bracket Challenge entries will have a perfect Final Four. Everyone has had at least one Final Four team eliminated. Only 33 brackets had Georgia making it this far. Only 15 also had Indiana State. Of those 15, five have Seton Hall, two have UNLV, one has Utah, and none have VCU. The one with Utah picked Boston College in the Seton Hall Region.
Our leader, JFreazy’s Bracket, picked Kansas State to win it all, and while it’s possible that entry can win it (we haven’t looked through scenarios yet, with 64 remaining), we would doubt that, given it only leads by two points. On the celebrity scoreboard, Fargo leads and is the only one with her champion alive, but there are a lot of entries with a maximum possible score higher than Fargo’s current score, so unless they’re all riding Indiana State, Fargo is vulnerable. Here was her official statement on Robbie Avila’s dominance last night.
Big NITe ahead, friends. It’s the NIT quarterfinals. Clear your calendars of all commitments. Get every device you own tuned to ESPN2.
