I was enjoying myself Saturday night.
We’d gotten the website up and running, we’d ordered patio furniture for our little balcony, and it was the eve of the Daytona 500. It was time to cut loose a little bit, and cut loose we did, heading to West 6th Street to celebrate a friend’s birthday.
Shortly before midnight, while sipping on a Lone Star and staring uncomfortably at video of two nude silhouettes making out on a screen behind the DJ at Buford’s while a remix of Footloose pounded through the speakers, I got a notification on my phone from my YAHOO SPORTS APP (editor’s note: A few months ago, NIT Stu got frustrated with his ESPN app repeatedly crashing and switched to the Yahoo one. For some reason, he hasn’t stopped referring to it in all caps since then. You might have to get used to this. I have.). I looked at it.
My blood began to boil.
I knew the name Pat Forde, but I didn’t know what he was about. I was neutral on him. But insinuating that an NIT field was somehow a bad thing? That didn’t fly.
I clicked into the article (if you ever want me to click on something, imply that you’re about to trash the NIT in its headline—I will fall on that clickbait sword every time).
In the middle, Forde explained himself.
Uhh, Pat? You think the 81.5th best team in college basketball is making the NIT? Doubtful. Everyone (Joe Stunardi when I texted him to confirm this) knows the cut line for the bottom rung of the NIT at-large bids is in the 60’s or 70’s. But what’s worse than this glorified blog boy (as an unglorified blog boy I have ownership of that term) blatantly using numbers that don’t support his insult to support his insult is that he associated the NIT with mediocrity.
The NIT, Pat, since you seem to know so little about it, is college basketball’s most historic tournament. It’s also, as I’ve pointed out previously, harder to get into than its bastard child (68 teams? Way easier to fit in that window than a svelte 32), and its championship takes place at Madison Square Garden, which many call the Mecca of college basketball. Does any of that sound mediocre to you?
Oh, it does?
Well, good thing I already sent this tweet, because I mean it:
You and I are enemies now, whether you like it or not. Here is what that means:
- I will heretofore refer to you solely as My Sworn Enemy Pat Forde™, or something similar.
- If I see you on press row (yeah I’ve gotten credentials before, no big deal) I am going to confront you and ask you if we can hash out our differences through respectful dialogue, like adults.
- You can’t come to my birthday party, which means you also can’t come to Johnny Appleseed’s birthday party because we share a birthday and I think it’s my turn to host this year.
