The NIT experimental rules are back, and they’re…partially the same as last year’s.
Last year, the NCAA snuck one by us. We missed the announcement about the different schedule for TV timeouts, and because it was only happening in the second half, it threw us for the biggest loop in the world. They’re doing that again this year (it’s the same in the first half, but in the second half they’ll come under the 17-minute mark, the 14-minute mark, the 11-minute mark, and then the 8 and the 4 as usual, replacing the old floating timeout). They’re also widening the lane to 16 feet. Only in the NIT. If you like wide lanes, well, the NIT’s gonna have the widest lanes around. Outside of the NBA and FIBA. But who watches FIBA anyway? Do you think the NIT gets more attention than FIBA? In my house, it does.
The NIT: Historic and innovative, all at the same time. Get you a tournament…
Pac-12 Canada
The Big 12 announced today the creation of Big 12 Mexico, an initiative in which the league will play good basketball games in Mexico City this year and try to launch a bowl game in Monterrey as early as 2026. With American football popular in Mexico already, thanks to the NFL, and with so much of the Big 12’s base still in Texas (and soon Arizona), it’s probably a good bet, and with a lot of SEC fans hating brown people, a lot of Big Ten fans uncomfortable with brown people despite being conceptually supportive, and the ACC thinking it has Latin America covered because it has Miami, the Big 12 makes sense as the league to make the move. Also, LDS missions have probably given BYU a loyal fanbase in the Yucatan. Big global move, adding BYU.
Thankfully, this probably means we’ll get Pac-12 Canada. Because if the Big 12 does something right now, the rules are that the Pac-12 has to try to do something similar but do it in the dumbest way humanly possible, like by hosting its conference softball tournament in Vancouver but forgetting to find anyone to broadcast it and then claiming that a player’s dad livestreaming it on Instagram is actually a better deal for the conference because no other league is broadcasting primarily through social media so they’re on the forefront of new technology.
Other things I hope for from Pac-12 Canada:
- Initiatives in which the Pac-12 tries to civilize Canada by “teaching” them sports. A baseball series in Toronto. A wrestling meet in Calgary. A tennis tournament in Montreal.
- French-language broadcasts on the CW.
- George Kliavkoff announcing the initiative at a press conference in St. Paul.
- A big victory lap when someone speculates that the league will add Ottawan basketball powerhouse Carleton University.
- A series on Pac-12 Network in which Bill Walton explores Nunavut.
- Every Pac-12 football game being presented by Tim Horton’s.
- The Pac-12 adding hockey as an official sport but Arizona State still being the only team.
- A big victory lap after using the phrase “First Nations” in a press release and a subsequent apology tour after accidentally saying something very demeaning in that same press release.
- The league announcing it’s pivoting to Canadian rules for football and assuming everyone will follow and then never following through or mentioning it again.
- A game canceled because of snow.
DeAndre Hopkins Is Taking Visits
To those who say college basketball is dying:
Why are we hearing so much about DeAndre Hopkins’s recruiting visits??
In a new twist, NFL free agency is following college basketball, not necessarily in doing recruiting visits, but in making them a big deal. If Hopkins doesn’t release a top 3 and say “respect my decision,” I’m going to be pissed.
Budweiser: Still Soccer’s Beer
Thank God.
Today has really been a gigantic news day, with the latest piece this reassurance that we can count on certain things in this world. In a ground-shaking release, FIFA announced AB InBev (that’s short for “All Budweiser In Beverage-drinkers’ bellies!”) will continue to be the official beer of the World Cup even though FIFA did a bait-and-switch on beer as a whole this past fall in Qatar. Again we say:
Thank God.
Smoke, Meet Fire
Joe Kelly pitched in the first game of today’s White Sox doubleheader in the Bronx, and I’ll let you guess how it went.
Three up, three down. You nailed it. That’ll clear those skies.
Chris Paul to the Bulls?
The Bulls have been included as speculated suitors for the recently waived Chris Paul, because the Bulls are always looking to get older and more medium and Chris Paul would help both those efforts. In a fun twist, this might also push the Bulls into the luxury tax, which: It would be very Chicago Bulls to go into the luxury tax just to try to push the needle from finishing 9th in the East to finishing 7th.
A License Plate Fiasco
Big license plate news from our friend Bennett Conlin, who reported earlier this week that Maryland’s War of 1812 bicentennial plates feature a URL which once went to a nonprofit centered around that bicentennial but now go to a website promoting an online casino based out of the Philippines. Because the bicentennial ended. So the nonprofit shut down.
Maryland already has license plate issues, mainly that their standard one should be way better than it is. They need someone to sort things out, and I am that someone.
Is Black Coffee Anti-Dairy?
I can’t find stats on this quickly, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that half-and-half isn’t a major driver of dairy sales in the United States. The quantity used in one sitting is just so much smaller than other milk products.
Still, I don’t think black coffee is good for fans of milk. Two reasons here: First, it seems to imply that some people don’t need milk? Second, once people do put cream in their coffee, they seem way more receptive to lactose being present in that cream than they do when they put milk on their cereal or that kind of thing. There’s more acknowledgment that half-and-half tastes good than there is that milk tastes good. We can win in the coffee mug. We need to make sure we’re competing there in the first place.
You lost me at the SEC hating brown people. Brainwashed much?
Hey now, I only pointed out that a lot do. Not all of them!