Remember when Penny Hardaway promised a national championship last year? That was great. Didn’t work out, but man—promising to win the NIT is a bold move.
He’s back again this year. Not exactly in the thick of things, but just a couple steps ahead of the NIT bubble as my good friend Joe has things projected. Plenty of opportunities for bad losses, too. Beginning today.
Saint Mary’s is going to sneak up on people this year. By which I mean, they’re bad. Maybe not-even-making-the-NIT bad. At least, we think they’re bad. We don’t really know, you know?
Anyway, the point of this is that it’s opportunity time for Saint Mary’s, and opportunity time for Memphis, and by opportunity time I mean Saint Mary’s beating Memphis would help both of their quests to make the NIT, and would help Penny Hardaway eventually win the NIT, at which point I’m hopeful the vaccine will be thoroughly distributed and I’ll be able to put my hand on his shoulder and say, “Hey, you did it, man.”
Other notes on today’s games:
- Northern Iowa plays Western Kentucky. Big showdown in true mid-major land. Well, not “big.” But big for those of us blogging about the NIT.
- VCU plays Utah State. Read those last two sentences from the last bullet again because they apply here too. This is like UNI/WKU Sr., or UNI-WKU is VCU/Utah State Jr. Take your pick.
- If you want to wrestle a remote control away from a family member to watch thoroughly mediocre basketball, Clemson/Mississippi State’s on CBSSN. So if your cable package covers that, go nuts.
- People got a little carried away last year with UCLA. UCLA wasn’t good. I mean, they played well in the Pac-12, but their nonconference results? They lost to Cal State-Fullerton. And that would be ok, but they also got worked by Hofstra. They play San Diego State today in a game of teams the broadcasters will say are better than they are, which is everything we’re about as NIT fans.
- If you are Scott Van Pelt and you’re secretly reading this blog hoping I’ll tell you how Maryland can win an NIT, I’m here for you. The first step is not a surprising, gut-turning loss to Old Dominion today, though. You need to win this one to keep your overall Win-Loss respectable when you start losing all over the place within the Big Ten.
