We had quite the weekend.
The NIT Is Here!
Well, it starts tomorrow. But it’s basically here. We got our bracket yesterday (Mile High Brendan, who I think was with us as early as the All Things NIT days, put one together with the first round’s TV schedule and tip times), and it’s beautiful. Would I have decided differently from the committee? Probably, yeah. Leaving South Carolina out was a bit of a bummer. But part of the wonder of the NIT is how hard it is to make the field, and the unclear nature of who’s in and who’s out just heightens that difficulty.
Most of our NIT content is outside these notes today. We put out our annual NIT preview. We have our bracket challenge, which you can enter at any time before Tuesday (tomorrow) at 7:00 PM EDT. We have a place you can buy a shirt that says 32 > 68 (if we sell enough merch, we’ll bring back MilkTime). Tomorrow, we’ll have brackets from myself, Joe, and even Fargo. From there, it only escalates. The NIT is upon us.
Joe Kelly Signed
Also upon us, or nearly upon us, is baseball season. The lockout’s over, and Joe Kelly’s coming to Chicago. Sadly for us, he isn’t going to pitch for the Cubs (unless we ask really nicely and the White Sox let him go up to Wrigley if he isn’t busy on the South Side and the commissioner’s office somehow doesn’t intervene), but he’s going to be in Chicago, and we’re excited. Here’s the full reaction.
Burnley Stunk
Our poor lads. Rough one down in London, losing to Brentford 2-0. It was scoreless until the 85th minute, and a scoreless draw would’ve been good, but with Ben Mee still out with that knee injury, the defense couldn’t hold. Adding insult to injury, Nathan Collins got a red card on the play that drew the stoppage time penalty kick goal, ending Burnley’s long run of letting us say, “But they don’t get red cards!” when haters say the boys play dirty.
Making things even worse, Leeds beat Norwich, which wasn’t surprising but puts those bastards five points ahead. Last five spots in the table look as follows, bottom three get relegated, relegation probability is from FiveThirtyEight:
16. Leeds – 26 points, 29 games played, -34 goal difference, 36% relegation probability
17. Everton – 22 points, 26 games played, -19 goal difference, 38% relegation probability
18. Watford – 22 points, 29 games played, -26 goal difference, 77% relegation probability
19. Burnley – 21 points, 27 games played, -16 goal difference, 44% relegation probability
20. Norwich – 17 points, 29 games played, -45 goal difference, 99% relegation probability
Everton makes up their game-in-hand on Thursday, hosting Newcastle. Leeds goes to Wolverhampton on Friday. Nothing else from any of the five until April, it appears. Must have an international break coming up. Good for the Mee knee. The Meeknee. That is quite fun to say out loud.
The Sens Sens’d and Were Sens’d
Beat Seattle in overtime on Thursday after a big collapse, lost to Chicago firmly on Saturday. Currently tied with the Coyotes halfway through up in Ottawa. Josh Norris did good things against Seattle, sounds like hardly anyone did good things against Chicago, Filip Gustavsson’s in goal tonight. The trade deadline is evidently finally getting close. Been hearing about it for weeks, finally have a date. It’s next week. I don’t actually have a date. I have a week. Someone spell this out for me, there is no chance I google it.
Chase Briscoe, Winner
The Hoosier has arrived, winning NASCAR’s Cup Series race at Phoenix to lock himself into the playoffs and make his sophomore season a whole lot easier. Ryan Blaney led early, Briscoe led late, not as much action as the last few weeks but not a bad showing from the new car. Got a good restart at the end.
Atlanta next week, then they’re here in Austin on the eve of NIT Media Day in New York. March is truly the greatest of months that are going on right now.
No Cap
Per dairyreporter.com, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association will not agree to limit the amount of milk produced in Ireland. Respect.
***
Not watching anything tonight. Knee-deep in NIT brackets. Should also probably take a walk or something. Maybe eat. Maybe drink. Maybe toss a few back and tell the bartender about the NIT on the off-chance they have sage advice about how hard Oklahoma’s going to try.
Oh SHIT.
I said I’d name an NIT favorite in here. Dammit, Virginia Tech. Why did you do this to me.
Uhh…
Candidates are Oklahoma, Wake Forest, Texas A&M, Utah State, Mississippi State. Those are the top five in KenPom. OU’s got a big lead, then there’s Wake Forest, another gap, and the other three. As far as I can tell, none have noteworthy players in the transfer portal yet, but no guarantee that Iverson Molinar and/or Alondes Williams will play for Mississippi State and Wake Forest, respectively.
I don’t know much about Ryan Odom’s style, but given where Utah State’s at as a program, it’s hard to see them not taking this at least somewhat seriously. We know Ben Howland’s teams play well in the NIT. I’d assume the same will be true of Buzz Williams and Porter Moser and Steve Forbes, whose guys have disappointment to get over but a decreasing level of the got-screwed aspect as you go through that list from left to right.
Overall, feels like there are few enough extra variables that we can go with KenPom and call the Sooners the NIT favorites. Nothing intangible that says they won’t try, and you’d think Oklahoma fans will fill the place up. Home court all the way to New York. Hard to beat that.
Texas A&M wins it all. Bank it.