As is tradition:
We begin not on Selection Sunday, but in the throes of winter. New York is empty. Dark. Cold. A baby is crying. But in the bowels of Madison Square Garden (which we enter with a time lapse drone shot that carries us down a bunch of twisting flights of stairs into something that resembles a crypt), a hooded figure rises from its slumber.
The music starts.
We get a fight sequence, and gradually, as the figure kicks the respective asses of faceless figures wearing sweatshirts that say things like, “IGNORANCE,” and “WANT,” and “TEAMS OPTING OUT,” we realize there are letters embroidered upon the back of the figure’s cape. Three of them.
N.
I.
T.
Now, the TV News Segments: “The powers that be announced today that the NIT *will* be happening…” “The NIT will feature just 16 teams, and will be played entirely in Frisco and Denton, Texas…” “My question for you is, can anyone even make a 16-team tournament? It’s just too difficult!…” “The NIT has risen again.”
By now, the NIT figure is out of MSG. It’s fought its way out. And it’s boarding an airplane. On its boarding pass, we see the airport code: “DFW.”
We get a wraparound shot of each of the 16 teams, plus a few others, watching the NIT Selection Show. Colorado State is elated. Buffalo is in a wondrous state of shock. Multiple Duke players are sobbing while Mike Krzyzewski looks at a newspaper from 1981 and shakes beneath his desk peering out towards the doorway and gnawing on his knuckles.
Then, it’s the bright lights. The bright lights of Comerica Center and The Super Pit. The camera lingers on the massive North Texas logo across center court at the latter.
The song’s getting on at this point, so we need to hurry up. Rather than a montage of a lot of clean basketball plays, performed deftly and expertly and with the proper level of spiritual emotion (unlike those plays made in certain other tournaments), we go straight through the highlights. Toledo stunned by Richmond’s comeback. Boise State celebrating after the SMU accidental kick-out-of-bounds. The D.J. Stewart three. The Lester Quinones putback. Kenneth Lofton Jr. doing Kenneth Lofton Jr. things. Kalob Ledoux levitating. It’s a good montage. The best montage. You’ve never seen a montage like this one. And of course, it ends with Penny Hardaway accepting the trophy, while tastefully hazy headlines from his 2019 guarantee float above his head and he looks off into the distance.
The song ends.
You’re smiling, and you’re a little choked up.
But what gives? There are still fifteen seconds left on the YouTube video.
Out of the black screen, a white hallway transitions into view. You’ve never seen it, but you know what it is (it’s because of the bulletin board on the wall that has a big Sports City USA logo pinned up on the bottom right corner). It’s the Comerica Center. And there’s Penny Hardaway, seated beneath the bulletin board, looking at the trophy the way one might look at the last doughnut in a very good box of doughnuts, or at one’s own newborn child. There are footsteps in the hall. Hardaway turns. There, distant but coming into focus, is the hooded figure from Madison Square Garden. The NIT itself, personified. It nods, slowly, deeply. Hardaway nods back. Not quite as slow. But still a good nod.
The NIT walks away, and as the camera pans downward, we see Hardaway’s clipboard set down next to him. Four digits are written across it. Underlined. With three letters beneath those.
2022.
NYC.
-Fin-
