The biggest news that can be announced:
The 2026 NIT Final Four will happen on a Thursday and a Sunday.
Why is this so big?
It’s the NIT, friend.
Also it normally happens on a Tuesday and a Thursday. This is different!
Thursday’s semifinals will take place at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Sunday’s championship will take place at a to-be-determined Indianapolis location.
What’s happening here is that in 2026, Indianapolis hosts the NCAA T*urnament’s Final Four, and with the NCAA attempting to bolster their younger, upstart, less-respected tournament, they’re hoping mixing its schedule with the NIT will bring credibility the NCAA T*urnament currently lacks. The 2026 schedule:
- Thursday: NIT semifinals (crowd cheers)
- Saturday: NCAA T*urnament semifinals (crowd boos)
- Sunday: NIT championship (crowd cheers)
- Monday: NCAA T*urnament championship (crowd boos)
The NCAA T*urnament? Not serious. The NIT? Very serious. By combining the events more closely in the schedule, the NCAA is hoping people will finally respect their bloated pet basketball competition. It won’t work, but I admire the hustle, and I think this will help the NIT, mostly via the Sunday schedule reinforcing to the public how beloved the NIT Championship is by God.
Where does this leave 2025’s NIT Final Four?
The announcement doesn’t mention this, probably because it didn’t want to overshadow the NCAA T*urnament’s updated team sheets, but I’d expect a 2025-specific announcement sometime soon. The way I see it, there are three possibilities: A return to Indianapolis, a temporary move to San Antonio, or a July Surprise™ in which the NIT is played somewhere downright shocking, like Yankee Stadium or Alcatraz Island.
The Indianapolis logic is simple: This year’s NIT Final Four was incredible. Hinkle Fieldhouse is a temple to college basketball, there are tons of dedicated college basketball fanbases in the Ohio River Basin and surrounding areas, and Butler is clearly down to keep hosting.
The San Antonio logic is simple: That’s where the 2025 NCAA T*urnament Final Four is. Maybe the NCAA wanted to pulse the reaction from today’s announcement before making the 2026 schedule annual. I don’t know of a San Antonio basketball court that measures up to Hinkle Fieldhouse (and I’ve been to San Antonio four times, once by accident), but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one that’ll do.
The logic for one of the others is not simple. But that’s what would make it a July Surprise™.
Wherever 2025’s ends up, it’s nice to have 2026’s on the calendar. It’s like a solar eclipse. You should buy your hotel rooms now.
Etc.
- The Pac-2 hosted “After Hours With the Beavs & Cougs” in Las Vegas last night following the conclusion of Big 12 Media Days. This was not pornographic. Or was it?
- Joel Embiid let his country down, fouling out in the third quarter of an exhibition game between Team USA and Canada. Maybe he saw Canada on the scoreboard and assumed the game was three periods?
- There’s a blossoming feud between Jaylen Brown and Nike. This started in 2022, when Brown (who used to wear adidas but has mostly worn Nike since his adidas contract expired in 2021) tweeted, “Since when did Nike care about ethics?” in response to Phil Knight’s complaint about Kyrie Irving more or less denying the Holocaust. Hilarious tweet from Brown. Probably didn’t get the laughs it deserved at the time. Anyway, the feud escalated yesterday and today, with Brown implying—again on Twitter—that Derrick White was named as Kawhi Leonard’s Team USA replacement because Nike dislikes Jaylen Brown. Something to keep an eye on. I say Brown goes and liberates a sweat shop. That’s my preferred outcome here. Then, bring those kids to the Olympics. And teach one of them to dunk on Phil Knight. To prove a point. Teach another to teach Kyrie Irving about the Holocaust. To prove a different point.
- Flavor Flav, who’s anointed himself the U.S. women’s water polo team’s biggest fan, practiced with the U.S. women’s water polo team. Here’s the video.
- Evidently The Killers were playing a concert yesterday in London and they paused the show late to stream, for everyone in attendance, the final minutes of England vs. the Netherlands in the Euro semifinals. When England won, The Killers immediately launched into Mr. Brightside, England’s favorite song. I want to know who thought up that plan, and when. This is what youth coaches mean when they try to teach you the importance of preparation. I’m pretty sure it’s also what Jesus meant when that guy asked, Who is my neighbor?
- If Darwin Nuñez went into the Copa América crowd last night to defend his family: Understandable move. Hard to criticize a guy for that.
- If Darwin Nuñez went into the Copa América crowd last night solely to fight opposing fans: That ruled. More of that please, soccer!
