Uh oh.
Now, this is not a full Dabo Swinney. But it’s getting there. The statements from Richmond regarding last night’s cancelation by Saint Louis, from Richmond’s website:
“We are extremely disappointed tonight’s game between the Spiders and Saint Louis University was postponed,” said Richmond Vice President and Director of Athletics John Hardt. “Our team was prepared to play and had successfully cleared all appropriate University, A10, NCAA and Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 protocols.”
“We are disappointed by tonight’s postponement,” added Spiders head coach Chris Mooney. “We had completed all of our health and safety protocols and were prepared to play. We will continue to comply with all relevant COVID regulations and we are looking forward to Tuesday’s game vs George Mason.”
This is the NIT contender off-court spat we need.
Or don’t.
Because that doesn’t make it sound like SLU will play in the NIT if invited. Moving on, though:
So if we accept for a moment that SLU isn’t interested in the NIT, and set that aside, basically what’s going on here is that Richmond thinks SLU’s whole bet is that even if they cancel a bunch of games, they can beat everyone in the A-10 Tournament and skip on into…well, the tournament teams make if they win their conference tournament.
Not the worst strategy if you’re Saint Louis, honestly.
Other NIT notes today:
- Boise State beat Colorado State in Fort Collins last night, which means Colorado State’s probably back across the NIT cut line and Boise State’s probably back on the verge of leaving the NITuation. Hate that for them. Happy for the Rams, though (the Colorado State Rams, not the Los Angeles Rams, to be clear).
- In auto-bid-relevant games, Grand Canyon beat NMSU, Cleveland State held off Green Bay, and UC-Irvine beat Hawaii. All strengthening their chances.
- Today, we’ve got quite a few teams trying to avoid great home wins. LSU hosts Texas Tech. Penn State hosts Wisconsin. Seton Hall hosts Villanova. Virginia Tech hosts Virginia. Georgia Tech hosts Florida State. I mean goodness, that’s a lot of that specific type of game. Wow.
- Arkansas is also trying to avoid a good win, but theirs is on the road, across the border (and across Tulsa) in Stillwater (Arkansas and Oklahoma State are very close just FYI you coastal punks who don’t know geography and yes in this case the Great Lakes have coasts).
- Duke Watch: The Blue Devils host Clemson. As long as they don’t blow the Tigers out, they’re probably still NIT-projected.
- Stanford tries to undo some damage in a visit to Arizona State. It’s kind of a lot of damage, though. Not sure you can do enough in Tempe to undo all that.
- Pitt hosts Notre Dame, looking to hold serve in their NIT quest. (Pitt’s looking to hold serve—sorry, that was vague. ND’s not in the NITuation.)
- Big bubble game in the A-10: Rhode Island plays Dayton.
- Tricky one for Providence at Georgetown. Probably want to win that if you’re the Friars.
- Dangerous one for Toledo at Bowling Green. Can BGSU get lucky again? Hope not. For the sake of all that is good.
- CREIGHTON PLAYS DEPAUL THERE ARE YOU HAPPY JAY WE MENTIONED CREIGHTON.
- Belmont/Murray State lacks its normal luster with Murray State 4-5 in the OVC.
- Tulsa tries to get back on track at East Carolina. Wichita State tries to stay on track, hosting UCF. TCU doesn’t know where the track is, but they play Mizzou, and there’s big movement (BM) potential there.
- Grand Canyon/NMSU rematch. UC-Irvine and Cleveland State also repeat their (respective) games.
- Remember Navy? They’re still undefeated in the Patriot League…oh wait. Shoot. They lost on Sunday. To Army. Friendly fire. Did I mention that on Monday? Ruh roh. Not a good sign either way. Gotta stay on my game.
