Texas returned to Madison Square Garden, and NIT vibes returned to Texas.
Friends, if you’ve ever wanted to spend the last hour of real clock time in a basketball game staring at referees’ asses and overhearing them ask ESPN’s announcers if they can borrow their monitors while Brad Underwood looks like he’s going to have a heart attack and Chris Beard reportedly tries desperately to convince his collapsing team that they are not collapsing and are actually having tons of fun, believe it or not, I swear guys you are having tons of fun, last night was your nirvana. It was the worst good basketball game I’ve seen in a long time, and I watch the NIT every single March.
Texas lost, in the end, which is kind of reassuring because I’m not ready emotionally for them to be nationally powerful. I want a three, four, five, or six-seed and I want a first-weekend exit. Doesn’t have to be an upset—I’m not wishing bad upon these young men—but it can’t be success. It needs to be unsatisfying.
In related news, Marquette beat North Carolina Central to improve to 7-3, and they cracked ninety for the fourth time this year, which makes me wonder even harder if there was something wrong with the rims at the Erwin Center during Shaka Smart’s tenure, and if this may have contributed to the national rise of Texas Tech. Put that in the Stu-Anon doc ideas list.
In NIT-land, we may have to eliminate Illinois and Wyoming from our ten-teams-who-could-win-the-NIT list, but we can’t eliminate Illinois after a win that comical, and we aren’t ready to quite Wyoming yet. All those injuries, right? They’ve been hurt? I haven’t watched a second of Wyoming basketball yet this year. No score app tracking, even.
Also in NIT-land, shoutout to James Madison, who played Virginia to a 55-50 defeat in Charlottesville. If there’s one thing we like to see NIT candidates do, it’s play good teams close, and plenty of bonus style points for only scoring fifty points while doing that.
Are the Cubs Going to Be Terrible?
I know this is a little alarmist, and I know it’s not shocking that they let Willson Contreras walk, but I’m getting the idea the Cubs are going to be really bad again, based on the fact that they were bad last year, let one of their best players skip town, and can only bring in so many free agents based on the fact there are only so many free agents left. Starting to become a numbers thing. Or a “Hopefully Christopher Morel wins the MVP somehow” thing.
On the bright side, if they’re terrible, we’ll be hearing it from a Hall of Famer over the radio, because Pat Hughes won the Ford C. Frick Award and will be inducted into Cooperstown this summer. We always knew the guy was a Hall of Famer, but it’s fun to have it official.
Is Louisville a Better Job Than Purdue?
Judging by the football version of the college coaching change chain, Louisville’s a better job than Purdue, but Cincinnati’s a better job than Louisville, and in the completely unsurprising piece of this, Wisconsin’s a better job than Cincinnati. All of this makes sense except for maybe the Cincinnati/Louisville part and maybe the Purdue/Louisville part, which is to say yeah, only the Wisconsin part makes sense.
There was some weirdness in each side of the Louisville situation, most simply because Louisville was involved, but to explain it more, because Scott Satterfield and Louisville had a love/hate relationship and Jeff Brohm is from Louisville and played at Louisville. It does seem to point out that Purdue’s a bad job, though, and it’s hard to disagree with that. You’re trying to recruit players to West Lafayette. Your best season possible seems to be going 8-4 and getting crushed in the Big Ten Championship. It shouldn’t be that different from Wisconsin, but for some reason it is, and I can’t really explain that reason. Culture, I guess. Surely the recruiting talent available isn’t that different between the two.
Anyway, I point all this out just to say that the Big 12 has a leg up on the ACC, and in this case an ACC job had a leg up on a Big Ten West job. Which feels relevant with conference realignment still buzzing. Got a lot of dead weight in the Big Ten and the SEC. The narrative likes to keep that part quiet.
Morocco’s Secret Weapon
First of all, Burnley’s back this weekend. They play Queens Park Rangers on Sunday morning. The World Cup has moved its games to Friday, Saturday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to make room for it. But speaking of those games!!!!
Anass Zaroury, famed Burnleyer (has scored four times in thirteen appearances since signing at the end of August), is on the Moroccan national team. Late call-up. Some might say the man is Morocco’s secret weapon, since he has yet to get into a game, but a weapon is still a weapon, and who’s to say the winger didn’t inspire the Moroccans to new heights after his thrilling appearance in that friendly against Georgia?
The 0-0 draw against Spain did feel like a Sean Dyche game, and I know Zaroury never played for Dyche, and I know Kompany’s Burnley doesn’t play like Dyche’s Burnley, but it’s still a good time to think of Morocco as the Burnley of this World Cup. The only other team that can claim Morocco is U2, and they’re not even a team! They’re just Bono and his friends singing about Jesus when Bono and his friends aren’t beating Spain in PK’s.
Exciting times as ever for the Burnleys.
There Was a Car in the Pool
I haven’t seen much that’s funny from Formula 1 and IndyCar (though congratulations to Formula E for making its natural journey to Portland, I’m sure Gavin Newsom and CaliCar fans and one of our commenters will be very happy, yes I know where Portland is, no I don’t care I’m still making a Gavin Newsom joke). BUT! The Snowball Derby recently happened and there was a car in the pool and then a car out of the pool and then that same car ran in a race and finished third. How can you not love stock cars? Racing America has the story:
Cameron Leytham and family were driving from their home in Mobile, AL to Five Flags Speedway Wednesday night when the unthinkable happened. A broken strap caused his No. 8 Pure Stock to roll off their open trailer, through a chain link fence and into the hotel pool at the Red Roof Inn & Suites in Tilllman’s Corner, Alabama.
They brought the car home, took it apart, drained everything, put it back together, and it started, so they hurried down to Pensacola and finished third. How fun is that? I’m going to take all my cars swimming before I race them now.
**
Tonight’s itinerary:
8:00 PM EST: Dayton @ Virginia Tech (ACCN)
6:30 PM EST: DePaul @ St. John’s (FS1)
Co-Games of the NITe tonight, with team-who-could-win-the-NIT Dayton playing never-out-of-the-picture Virginia Tech and Big East play opening with title candidate St. John’s hosting DePaul (that’s NIT title, not Big East title). Dayton has horrific vibes right now, and Virginia Tech has Mike Young vibes, so I wonder if we’ll get a tornado, because I think that’s what happens when two very different air masses collide. In New York, St. John’s is facing the classic test where we just make sure they aren’t as bad as DePaul. NIT teams are supposed to not be as bad as DePaul.
9:00 PM EST: Towson @ Clemson (ESPN+)
Another of our contenders, Clemson is hosting Towson down in South Carolina. Do you think they’ll ask Towson a lot of questions about what last year was like? I hope they do. And I hope Towson answers with earnestness and kindness. We need to support one another in our NIT quests. If we don’t, what other humanity has humanity got?
6:30 PM EST: Michigan State @ Penn State (BTN)
8:30 PM EST: Nebraska @ Indiana (BTN)
There aren’t any great NIT candidates in the Big Ten, but three of these are at least on our watch list, and to be perfectly frank, it’s very economically advantageous for us if Big Ten teams eventually make the NIT. Those fans click.
9:00 PM EST: Pitt @ Vanderbilt (SECN)
Vanderbilt isn’t winning the NIT, but they might make it. Pitt’s in the picture. The Pitt-ture. The armpit-ture. Heh. Heh. Got ‘em.
9:00 PM EST: UConn @ Florida (ESPN2)
It’s like 2007 but even better, because one of these teams has a chance to make yet another NIT.
9:00 PM EST: Arizona State @ SMU (ESPNU)
Arizona State’s been quite the NITease of late, but dropping a road game to a team people assume is fine when they’re pretty bad is very much on the table, so say what you will but we can’t quit the Devils.
7:00 PM EST: FGCU @ FAU (ESPN+)
FAU’s one of those Conference USA teams that’s suddenly good. FGCU isn’t suddenly good or anything, but they’re competitive enough to give us a look at the Owls (that’s FAU’s nickname).
7:00 PM EST: Penn @ Villanova (CBSSN)
Big Five. (Shhhhhhhh. Don’t say it just yet.)
7:00 PM EST: Boston University @ Notre Dame (ESPN+)
Nothing Notre Dame does here will really change our perception of their ability to win the NIT, because their whole thing is having a lot of bad days with a lot of medium-to-good talent, but we’ll still be keeping tabs on it. Also one of my high school friends went to BU (nerd and a half, guy’s a radiologist interested in artificial intelligence now), so this’ll give me a reason to think, “Maybe I should text my friend,” and then not do it.
