UNC lost again last night, and we’ll admit it. We want them. We want them badly. We want to bring them into our tournament and watch them play at least four games of basketball, and possibly five. We want UNC to arrive in the NIT, and we want UNC to thrive in the NIT, and we want UNC to vibe in the NIT. This is a high-pressure year for the tournament. The last time the Final Four wasn’t at Madison Square Garden, teams opted out. We can’t have that, and getting UNC to play in it—which who knows if they will or won’t if asked, someone probably knows but it isn’t me—would go a long ways towards legitimizing things.
UNC lost again last night, and we’ll admit it. It doesn’t lock them into our field. Far from it! The Tar Heels still project to finish above the NIT’s upper cut line, and recent history goes a long ways toward dampening our hope. We’ve seen this before from the guys in blue. We’ve seen this before from suits in the selection room, too. We know what we’re up against.
Still, Valentine’s Day is a day for love, is it not? Or at least a day for fervent crushing? We’re crushing on the University of North Carolina. Hubert Davis, get down here and party with us. We’ll make it worth your while.
Great, Now I Have to Squat
After seeing Top Gun: Maverick this summer, my immediate reaction was to look in the mirror and say, “Shit.” My second reaction was to ponder quietly to myself how many pushups I could do at once. The next day, the answer surprised me, and not in a good way, and not because I had high expectations.
Anyway, my biggest takeaway from Sunday’s Super Bowl was that if Jalen Hurts can do all of that, I need to start doing squats again. It’s been a while, but it’s time. Might even have to get a gym membership. I hate this. Could Nick Sirianni have just called a few fullback dives? Why did he have to show off that man’s leg power that many times? We got the idea after the first ten sneaks. Now I have unrealistic expectations for myself.
On the winning side, Andy Reid remains an out and out delight. If you could celebrate Christmas with any ten people from the sporting world as well as four toddlers (let’s say they’re all yours, for the sake of this not being weirder than it already is), Andy Reid has to be on the list. He has to be at Christmas. I feel like he knows Santa, and knows Jesus, and is friendly with them both.
Also on the winning side, is Patrick Mahomes suspiciously likeable or is that just me? Texas Tech has long been the most likeable school in Texas, so maybe that’s it, or maybe it’s that he doesn’t look or sound like he’s trying to be handsome and instead looks and sounds like he’s trying to have more fun than any middle schooler has ever had. He looks excited to be wherever he is. At all times. He’s not coming to Christmas—the other nine spots are going to Tim Miles, Doris Burke, Joe Kelly, Shaka Smart, and Joc Pederson plus whoever Joc Pederson thinks it would be fun to have at Christmas (Brady Tkachuk would be one of the toddlers)—but I bet he tears into that wrapping paper with reckless abandon. I bet he gets shreds of wrapping paper in his hair.
Texas Tech Is Back
On the Texas Tech topic: They’re winning the NIT, I think. Mayhem in Lubbock lately, and we successfully jinxed Texas with our Bevo’s Fake Nuts over the weekend, so credit to us for altering the Big 12 Championship race. Bill Self owes us one, and it isn’t the first time (I once killed a person because Bill Self told me to [parody law!]).
The great thing about what Texas Tech is doing is that they keep storming the court. They did it after they beat Iowa State on the justification of it having been an absurd comeback and it being their first conference win of the year and there being an ice storm outside (the wilder the circumstance, the higher the desire to storm). They did it after they beat Kansas State on the justification that Kansas State is supposed to be really good. That was where things got awkward. Because they clearly should have stormed last night, beating the best team in their conference and also their archrival (who doesn’t acknowledge Texas Tech as their own archrival, adding some further fuel to Tech’s fire), but they’d just done it twice, and…
Look. Court storming is fun, it’s lame to complain about fun, we’re in favor of storming courts. But given all three storms have been small—the first because there weren’t many people there (see: ice storm, zero conference wins), the second and third because fans weren’t sure whether they’d already used up all their storming capital—this is getting ridiculous, and now it has to keep happening. Every Texas Tech home win for the rest of the year (and there could be up to three in the NIT alone) must be accompanied by at least a portion of fans in attendance running onto the court. It’s three times. That’s tradition. Break it, and Texas Tech will lose its next home game. This is the truth science cannot explain.
Burnley Got Dyched, the Flames Got Sens’d
More coverage of Aaron Rodgers’s darkness retreat soon (see the next section for that), but quick acknowledgment that Watford Dyched Burnley this afternoon, and quick praise for the Sens for Sens’ing the Flames last night in Ottawa.
The Dyching? Watford held Burnley off for 95 minutes and got a cheap goal of their own but did allow Burnley to grab the draw at the end.
The Sens’ing? The Sens erased a very, very late 3–1 deficit that would have ended any unreasonable playoff hopes (the reasonable ones were already gone) and then won it in overtime with Tim Stützle delivering the winner.
Watching the Sens is, for me, a lot like how I imagine Atlantic 10 fans feel watching their own favorite league. Because the Sens are the only hockey team I watch, I know all their best players and think those best players are amazing, so I think the Sens are much better than they are. This is how you get A-10 fans on Twitter in April saying they think the league could get eight NCA* *********t bids the next season. I get it, guys. I finally understand.
Housekeeping, Chaos
We’re a month away from the NIT, and it’s a short month, which means we’re only 28 sleeps away from waking up and turning on various North Macedonian club soccer games on ESPN+ just to make sure our subscription is still functional for North Texas’s game against Southern Miss that evening.
With this looming emotional orgy comes utter internal chaos, so good luck to you and to us on whatever content comes out over these next few weeks. We have no idea what we will and won’t get out there as far as blog posts, social media ventures, coverage of things other than the NIT, and brushing our own teeth all go. It’s just that time of year.
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The menu this evening:
9:00 PM EST: Michigan @ Wisconsin (ESPN2)
Game of the NITe! And sources even say that in honor of the lovers in the room, Wisconsin will be wearing white and red. Fan of this for all involved. Michigan is getting sneakily close to getting away from us, but this feels like one where Wisconsin rocks them, instead making us scared of Wisconsin getting away from us. We are herding cats over here. And not just Wildcats, if you know what I mean (this is a Kentucky joke, Weber State is currently my ex).
6:30 PM EST: Vanderbilt @ South Carolina (SECN)
Can Vanderbilt stay hot? Does beating teams as bad as South Carolina count as staying hot? Well, it’s on the road, and this is an NIT blog, so yes.
7:00 PM EST: Illinois @ Penn State (ESPNU)
Not getting away from us is Penn State, though we do have to ask a favor: Can you guys at least scare Illinois a little? Just rough ‘em up a bit. Remind them we’re here. We don’t think we’re getting them, but around these parts we like to dare to dream.
6:00 PM EST: Georgetown @ Seton Hall (CBSSN)
This is a basketball game, and it features one team who has a very strong chance of making the NIT. We’ll let you guess which one. Turn it on. Guess. Not the bad one! No!! Not that one!!!!
7:00 PM EST: Mizzou @ Auburn (ESPN2)
7:00 PM EST: Creighton @ Providence (FS1)
7:00 PM EST: Notre Dame @ Duke (ESPN)
A lot of people are saying NIT things about Auburn, and a lot of people are very wrong about what an NIT team looks like. At the same time, though, who are we to criticize? We’re daring to dream of Providence and Duke. Good luck getting that image out of your head.
8:00 PM EST: Butler @ Villanova (CBSSN)
9:00 PM EST: Kansas State @ Oklahoma (ESPNU)
Villanova and Oklahoma are each trying rather explicitly to make the NIT, and Villanova and Oklahoma are each rather explicitly fucked in that endeavor. These teams are not reaching .500. But dammit, we can’t look away (just kidding if this is a safe space we do not get CBSSN on Sling and so far we’ve managed to survive without it).
7:00 PM EST: NC State @ Syracuse (ACCN)
8:00 PM EST: Nebraska @ Rutgers (BTN)
8:30 PM EST: LSU @ Georgia (SECN)
9:00 PM EST: St. John’s @ DePaul (FS1)
NIT longshot Power Rankings, from longest to shortest among these four:
1. Nebraska
2. Georgia
3. Syracuse
4. St. John’s.
Thank you.
7:00 PM EST: Kent State @ Western Michigan (ESPN+)
7:00 PM EST: Miami (Ohio) @ Toledo (ESPN+)
9:00 PM EST: Boston College @ Pitt (ACCN)
Why is Pitt in the MAC section? Because we forgot about them, ok? We scrolled past them on the list and we forgot to put them somewhere they belonged. This is where they are.
(Kent State and Toledo are tied at the top of the league, loser falls into a tie that could be as large as three teams for second place, the MAC is STACked, not actually but it does feature a very close race for the conference title and accompanying likely NIT automatic bid.)
9:00 PM EST: Air Force @ Utah State (MWN?)
10:00 PM EST: Wyoming @ New Mexico (CBSSN)
10:00 PM EST: San Jose State @ UNLV (MWN?)
The Mountain West is saucy, or so they say. Really. They say this. All the time. Set foot anywhere in the vicinity of New Mexico (the state, not just the university) and you hear the low rumble of thousands upon thousands of voices plainchanting, “The Mountain West is saucy.” This is what caused much of the Roswell confusion.
We aren’t going to watch the Lobos. For reasons we will not explain again.
7:30 PM EST: Sens @ Islanders (ESPN+)
SENS TIME BABY GRAB YOUR CHILDREN ‘CAUSE THE SENS ARE ON THE ISLAND AND THEY’RE GOING TO WIN A HOCKEY GAME ON IT.
Where does Vanderbilt sit now?
We’re still projecting them to finish right on the bubble. Big to get that win last night, but it was an expected win and it didn’t change their KenPom or NET much, so it didn’t move the needle too significantly. Whether they’re in our next projected bracket or not depends on what others do around them, but they’re definitely in the picture.