We’ve got good news and we’ve got bad news.
The good news is that UNC really might be the NIT favorite right now. Of everyone in our projected field, UNC has the third-highest KenPom ranking, and as a projected 2-seed, they aren’t exactly pointed straight at the bubble like Mississippi State or Utah State above them.
The bad news is that Kentucky is not making the NIT. They really turned it around. Bummer for them. But, as the saying goes, when God closes a Wildcat, he opens up a Tar Heel.
Hey Ricky, You’re So Fine
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is the Daytona 500 champion, emerging from the pack at the end of one of the better races in recent memory. No rain delays, no near deaths, some big names in the mix up until the end, hard to ask for more than that. The one thing I would ask for? Figure out a way to let the cars in front of the last-lap wreck not be under caution and still race to the finish line in situations like yesterday’s. I know they’ve tried stuff like this before and it’s gone terribly, and I know it’s important to be able to get emergency services to drivers as quickly as possible after accidents, but I would’ve liked to see Stenhouse and Joey Logano and Christopher Bell duke it out for another mile instead of the race coming down to when a guy in a tower presses a button.
Also, I’m still a little bummed Stenhouse doesn’t have more of a reputation as a bad boy. He was spinning people out consistently for a while there. Maybe back in 2020? 2021? Early days of us blogging consistently about NASCAR.
Mac!
Rough night for our old friend Jericho Sims, but he’s been made fun of before and turned out fine. Really, he should’ve known better than to go against Mac McClung head to head (in addition to doing the envelope thing first rather than doing the elbows twice in a row). Jericho Sims of all people should know that Mac McClung’s swagger is unmatched. And what matters in a dunk contest? Swagger.
I have no idea if Mac McClung is a good person or not. He looks like an elementary schooler that’s always digging a giant hole in the woodchips. But dammit is he fun to watch. On the basketball court, sure. But I mean off it as well. Watch that man interact with his fellow humans. It’s gotta be weird.
The draft wasn’t as fun as I hoped, but I think that was partly because I’d been hoping to get some fresh air between the race and the draft and it didn’t happen so I came in a little annoyed. I liked Giannis getting foxy with it. Not drafting a big man once there was only one left, trying to steal Ja Morant, seeming as delightful as he always does. I do wish it had been fast, though. And on the court. Right before play started. That would’ve been more fun.
I will say, the NBA’s plan to do the reserves first so no one would feel like Jaren Jackson Jr. was the last pick didn’t work, and it didn’t work beautifully. Instead, we got Lauri Markkanen getting embarrassed in front of his home crowd. That really felt like the last pick.
Sens Got Hot, Sens Got Cold
Weird weekend for the Sens, who after Friday’s collapse absolutely bludgeoned the Blues yesterday and then were forced to play the best team in the league at practically dawn this morning? Rude. Ottawans don’t even recognize our presidents! Well, they do, I guess. But not as their presidents!
The playoff path is pretty clear, and it’s not as terrible as people want it to be. It’s basically a seven-team race for two spots, and Ottawa is currently last in it, but there’s a path to leading it as early as the end of this month. Only something like 23 games have to go exactly right.
Burnley Is on Fire
There are months left in the Championship League, and Burnley is potentially just weeks from clinching promotion. Maybe even first place. They could clinch first place in less than a month. Again, slim odds, Sheffield United would have to lose its next five or six games, but it’s possible, and that’s wild.
It’s a good time to be a guy who chose to become a Senators/Burnley fan because they were the most irrelevant teams in the countries most similar culturally to the United States and he wanted to watch hockey and soccer more.
**
The menu this evening:
7:00 PM EST: Oklahoma State @ West Virginia (ESPN2)
Game of the NITe, with both teams trying to make a backdoor push. Oklahoma State has hit 16 wins, but if they go 1–3 from here (which is pretty straightforward, don’t even need to lose as a favorite) and then drop the tournament opener to OU, they might be in. West Virginia has only hit 15 wins, so their path is even clearer (both teams are in the spot where they’re clearly too good to play in the NIT but the other tournament feels guilty about letting teams in with uninspiring win/loss records, so they sometimes throw us a bone).
Imagine Bob Huggins’s fury if he has to hang out with me.
7:00 PM EST: Louisville @ Duke (ESPN)
Ok, here’s an angle: What if we point out to Duke that UNC is looking like it’s going to play in the NIT, and that UNC really punked them last year? Maybe Duke will try to outdo UNC? Maybe by collapsing into the NIT even more dramatically? Hard to think of a more dramatic collapse than losing at home to this Louisville.
9:00 PM EST: Minnesota @ Illinois (BTN)
Similarly, Illinois isn’t quite out of our woods. I think we used that exact same imagery with someone this weekend, possibly even Illinois, but it’s still true. If we are a witch and they are a child, we’ve still got a chance at cooking them and eating them. And tonight’s a no-win.
10:00 PM EST: UC-Irvine @ Cal Poly (ESPN+)
10:00 PM EST: Cal State-Fullerton @ UC-Santa Barbara (ESPN+)
Irvine’s got the one-game Big West lead, but it’s only one game, and the Big West plays on the big boy schedule where they’ve got a lot of games left and a late conference tournament. UCSB looks to tie it back up heading into the stretch run.
7:30 PM EST: Howard @ Morgan State (morganstatebears.com)
7:30 PM EST: Coppin State @ Norfolk State (HBCU League Pass+)
What? You don’t care about HBCU sports? Wow. Telling on yourself.
It’s ok to not make a show about watching low-major college basketball for sociocultural reasons, but it’s not ok to ignore the NIT bubble implications of the Howard/Norfolk State race. Err, the Howard/Norfolk State competition. For first place in the MEAC. For one thing, Norfolk’s proximity to UNC could save the Tar Heels from a possible first round matchup with VCU. For another, Norfolk winning the regular season title could eventually open up another at-large slot in the NIT, because Norfolk’s going to be the MEAC Tournament favorite.
See? Education really can end racism.
