You guys want to be reminded of something wild?
As recently as 2010, DePaul was able to poach Clemson’s acting head coach.
DePaul fired Tony Stubblefield today, which was sad but probably good for DePaul. DePaul is bad. Very bad. DePaul is on track to be the worst DePaul’s ever been during the kenpom era. DePaul is tragically bad. This is the risk of having a guy be your coach for 42 years, like Ray Meyer was. Eventually, you will have to do something else. You have no way of knowing if that something else will work.
It’s wild to see how successful DePaul used to be, wild enough to make some wonder whether the concept of athletic conferences was a bad idea in the first place. Before DePaul had to join a conference (the Great Midwest Conference, with Cincinnati & Memphis & UAB & Marquette & SLU), DePaul was good. After DePaul joined a conference, DePaul started to become bad. They made an NIT quarterfinal under Jerry Wainwright and gave us some beautiful Pantelis Xidias moments in the Dave Leitao years, but DePaul has been little but disappointment since independence was taken away from college basketball. The program that brought us the 1945 NIT champions (led by George Mikan), the 1948 NIT fourth-place finishers (led by guys who knew George Mikan), and the 1983 NIT runners up (led by guys who probably did a drill named after George Mikan) has, since joining the Great Midwest Conference, managed just a 4–6 record in NIT games. They haven’t made it all since 2007. We miss DePaul. We want DePaul back.
DePaul should be Chicago’s equivalent to St. John’s. They don’t need to be good. They shouldn’t be good, really. But they should be intriguing enough to consistently get college basketball diehards excited about the possibility that they will be good. DePaul should get our hopes up. Also, DePaul should host and win a bunch of NITs. But everyone should do that last part if they can.
Blake Hinson’s Moment
My favorite part of the college basketball weekend was, like yours, Blake Hinson standing on the table to taunt the Cameron Crazies after Pitt upset Duke. I’m surprised he hasn’t been given a reprimand. Maybe he has? I guess I’m maybe not CC’d on all ACC reprimands.
One thought about that photo:
What do you do in that situation if you’re a Duke student?
I think you have to do the middle finger. But it also looks so owned and futile? I don’t know. I don’t know that there’s a good comeback. Every year, I understand a new dimension of the Malice at the Palace.
Tyrese Hunter Saved the Day
Texas is back to not being completely dead, getting past Baylor on Saturday after loosening the rims all the way at the Moody Center. Tyrese Hunter and Dylan Disu, predictably, led the way, with Hunter winning it at the buzzer after going coast to coast.
This is great for fans of NITexas, when we zoom out and look at it seriously. They’re going to be decently big underdogs in each of their next four games. A seven-game losing streak would constitute free fall, and the concept of free fall does not include landing in the pristine waters of the NIT.
Meanwhile, Shaka Smart’s Marquette Golden Eagles answered the haters by grabbing their second straight win and their first road win of the Big East season. Was it pretty? Of course not. They nearly lost a game they had wrapped up. But they won. Now, they get to play DePaul.
How to Protect Court-Stormings From Caitlin Clark
I think that if you found a friend who spent all day yesterday away from The Internet, you could have a conversation with them that went like thisg.
- You: Hey, guess what just started the Performative Sports Commentary Super Bowl?
- Your Friend: Hmm. Women’s basketball?
- You: Of course.
- Them: Caitlin Clark?
- You: Correct.
- Them: She do something?
- You: Not really.
- Them: Was it in a game?
- You: There was a game.
- Them: Did she start a fight?
- You: No. Ask if she won or lost.
- Them: Did she lose?
- You: Yes. Now guess what happened next.
- Them: Oh God she got hurt in a court-storming didn’t she.
Caitlin Clark, thankfully, did not get hurt in a court-storming. Nor did she pretend to get hurt. I don’t think. If you want three different angles, we have three different angles, but it feels like the median explanation here is that neither Caitlin Clark nor the girl taking the selfie video was paying attention to the other, and they collided, and Clark was shaken up because she unexpectedly ran into a human being. (Credit to Rikki Harris, by the way, who appeared to be the Ohio State player who ran over to check on Clark and immediately got shoved by a security guard. Should security guards be banned???) Clark was just as much at fault as the student, and it was not a serious collision. They didn’t go noggin-to-noggin or knee-to-knee. That is good.
So, let this be a lesson to athletes on how to get off the court during a court-storming. Honestly, as fun as women’s college basketball is getting, it makes some sense that Caitlin Clark wasn’t used to seeing the court stormed against her.
People love to argue about court-stormings (we did a bit about this just five days ago), and people love to show off how good of people they are by out-outlandishing each other with their statements about Caitlin Clark. Caitlin Clark is a great, great player. Among the best women’s college basketball players ever. But she wasn’t decapitated. She didn’t even get hurt.
In a given college basketball season, there are well more than 50 stormed courts. There might be 100. I’m not sure. There has been…one significant injury from one of them? That reporter in 2015? Court stormings are remarkably safe. And they’re a job hazard! If you don’t want to risk being hurt in a court storming, either win all your road games or don’t play college basketball. It’s like concussions and football. At this point, the risk isn’t sneaking up on anybody.
Anyway, I love the concept of banning the act of storming the court. As though you could ban a spontaneous act of jubilance.
(Buckethat tip to my friend Danny for pointing out that Caitlin Clark is a risk to the act of storming the court more than stormed courts are a risk to Caitlin Clark.)
The Real Damar Hamlin
How cool would it have been if Damar Hamlin had gotten that first down on the fake punt yesterday? I know it’s cool to not like Disney moments, but Disney moments rock, and that was almost a Disney moment. Infinite upside with that call, whether it was planned or an audible.
I will say: For all the people who asked last winter if Damar Hamlin was a body-double…Where were you? This was your moment! What better time to accuse a man of no longer existing and being replaced by a non-NFL caliber athlete than when he fails to get a key first down!?
Disappointing stuff from The Internet’s finest.
Also, is Jay Feely just CBS’s kicking correspondent? I admit to not paying the closest attention to Jay Feely’s role in the media. Was that his gig yesterday?
Joe Kelly: Hall of Famer
Joe Kelly was inducted on Saturday into the Lyle Wilkerson Corona Baseball Hall of Fame, which I believe is Corona High School’s baseball hall of fame. We’re working off of context clues here. Congratulations to our guy. The first of many, I will make sure.
Upcoming Bits
Just a quick warning about two bits we’re going to be doing:
First, I think it’ll be funny to say teams “didn’t even make the NIT” when they made the NCA* *********t. Like UConn last year. “Those guys? You think they’re good? They didn’t even make the NIT!” The ‘even’ does a lot of the work.
Second, I’m going to start calling Kyle Shanahan “Kevin” instead of Kyle. I think I’ll start this on Saturday, though I might sprinkle it in a little this week. Just want to get it in writing that I’m merely making fun of a successful grown man I don’t know, and that I’m doing it for no reason. That way, I won’t look like an idiot.
Milk News
The bad milk news: A tractor-trailer full of milk caught fire in Connecticut on Friday.
The good milk news: That DoorDash commercial with the dancing cow on the milk carton is delightful. I love the dance. It’s such a happy, mischievous cow.
The hypothetical milk news: How much milk do you think shirtless Jason Kelce could drink at a Bills/Chiefs playoff game in the cold? It has to be 50% more than he can drink in the comfort of his own home, right?
Miscellany
- That Packers game made me happy and then made me sad. I didn’t think there was a way for the Packers to end the season that left me unhappy, but it happened. (This is also a common phenomenon when I bet on sports.) I was ready to build a statue of Eric Wilson.
- The Bulls won twice, but one was over the Grizzlies, which I think is a Q4 win at this point.
- The Sens had a great Moms Road Trip, whooping the Flyers yesterday. (Was it a whooping? No. But the Flyers did lose to the Sens.) They also at least forced overtime against the Jets on Saturday, and they smoked the Canadiens on Thursday night. If they can keep up this pace of 1.67 points per game, they might—emphasis on might—have a playoff chance. Shane Pinto returned from his gambling suspension. Or at least, they signed him. I will level with you all: I often don’t watch the Sens. I have no clue if Shane Pinto has or has not been playing. My hunch says not yet. I will try to report back.
