I can’t stop thinking about the Pop-Tart.
As others have said, Kellogg’s nailed it. It was perfect. The 2023 Pop-Tarts Bowl will live in glory forever. I fear what others will do to try to top it, and I fear it jumping the shark, but Kellogg’s promised us an edible mascot, and they delivered, and no future wrongs can take this right away. It wasn’t just the edibility, either. Along the way we gained the indisputable addition to American cultural canon that Pop-Tarts dream of being eaten, all told through a Christ-like crucifixion narrative. Did the Pop-Tart die for our sins? No. He died that we might eat Pop-Tarts. And he went joyfully.
Obviously, the NIT needs to learn from this, and as I have already offered, if it helps the NIT you all may toast me and eat my corpse. What, though, can the NIT really learn? Three things:
1. Sponsors help. I know, they can bother people, and the NIT name—like that of the Sun Bowl or the Gator Bowl—is not something that should be erased. But a good sponsor can integrate itself alongside the NIT in only a supportive way. One day, God willing, this blog will have the revenue to be that good sponsor. In the meantime, we need to call up General Mills. It’s time for them to answer the challenge. Otherwise, I will only ever eat Kellogg’s products. They gave me the 2023 Pop-Tarts Bowl, after all.
2. It’s ok to be silly and to have fun. People like to have fun. Players like to have fun. Coaches like to have fun. In a world of opt-outs and early transfers, it’s ok to make the postseason a fun thing.
3. If you deliver on a promise, you will be a legend. The beauty of what the Pop-Tarts Bowl did is that they told us it was coming. We knew for a long time that there would be an edible mascot. We were unsure how it would manifest itself, but we knew it was coming, and that unknown made us want to find out. We tuned in to watch a Pop-Tart get eaten. We saw that Pop-Tart dance around. We saw that Pop-Tart sacrifice itself for our own entertainment and culinary enjoyment. We had an expectation, but that expectation was vague. Kellogg’s met the expectation and then exceeded it. Make audacious promises. But be sure to deliver in the end. Ultimately, our species wants these bold attempts to succeed.
Game of the NITe of the Weekend
There are a lot of ACC contenders this weekend, but like the College Football Playoff, we don’t care about those. We watched Oregon beat USC last night, and now we’re attached to Oregon. We’ve been following UCLA for weeks, and for the moment they’re straddling the NIT line. UCLA at Oregon. Tomorrow afternoon. CBS. Sorry, everything else happening. It’s the Game of the NITe of the Saturday Afternoon.
When We’ll Know if Texas Basketball Is Bad
Texas basketball is not good. We’re pretty sure of this right now. They’re 9–2, but the most impressive thing they’ve done is beat an LSU team that forgot its school has a basketball program. What we don’t know is whether Texas is bad.
There are two flavors of being bad. There’s being an NIT team—which for some teams is bad, and we can agree to disagree. Then, there’s being *bad.* This is the question we’ve been asking with UCLA. Is UCLA NIT bad? Or is UCLA *bad* bad? We hope to ask this soon of Texas as well.
Most likely, Texas is not *bad.* But they might be. As it stands, they’re close to an NIT level, but not in active danger yet. If they can lose this weekend? Against UNC Greensboro or UT Arlington? They’re in our territory, and they might be *bad.*
We don’t want Texas to be *bad.* But we want to ask the question. Rodney Terry, the move is yours.
(Marquette has a big game against Creighton tomorrow. Doesn’t really affect the NIT. Wanted to mention that for any Texas fans who might be wondering.)
How I Would Rig a Bowl Game
It doesn’t seem any bowl games were successfully rigged, from what we know so far. There were some shenanigans with UNLV and Kansas, but the side the rigging appeared to be favoring didn’t end up covering the spread. Bowl games, which are so ripe for rigging, full of backups and uncertainties and live, human-sized pastries walking the sideline, seem to have survived another year. That is probably good. No one wants to see the Pop-Tart on trial for match-fixing. (I want to see the Pop-Tart on trial for match-fixing.)
Anyway, if I had to rig a bowl game…
I’m imagining the mafia would be holding my dog hostage and I would need to free her by winning them money through point shaving. It wouldn’t be about a winner or a loser. It would be about the spread. To pull that off? I think I’d need 28 points, to be safe. I would get those 28 points by unleashing two of the worst trick plays ever conceived. I think two plays should be enough to rig any bowl game. You can swing a game by 14 points with a well-timed horrible trick play. And trick plays are bowl game staples. Plus, I’m a little quirky! I would totally get away with it.
What if Free Agents Don’t Want to Play for Craig Counsell?
The Cubs keep not signing free agents, and people are mad about it. I think we can use this to our advantage.
The Cubs did sign one person in uniform this offseason, and that person is Craig Counsell, their new manager. We have some history with Craig Counsell at this blog. We don’t like him. We think he’s a weasel. We’ve come around on the idea of him managing our favorite team—if he makes the Cubs one or two wins better, he’s probably worth eight million—but. What if all MLB free agents agree with us? What if they all hate the guy, too?
Joe Kelly, on the other hand…look at the free agents he brought in.
The Sens vs. the Powers of Hell
The Senators play the Devils tonight (they play the Sabres on Sunday, but we don’t have as much to say about those guys), and I don’t know that we talk enough about there being a team named the Devils. The Devils! That’s terrifying. Plenty of mascots can kill you, but only Devils can torture your soul for all eternity. Hopefully the Sens beat them once and for all.
In hockey talk, I did learn today that the Sens have a good goal differential relative to their record. And that the Devils have a bad one. Is it a sign? Am I a hockey sharp?
Can Burnley Follow Aston Villa?
Our beloved Burnleys play Aston Villa tomorrow morning, and Aston Villa is…good? Halfway through the season, they’re in third place. That’s a lot better than where Burnley’s at. A lot, lot better.
The thing about Villa, though, is that they too came up from the Championship just a few years ago themselves. They’re traditionally a top division team, and they had some good teams thirty and more years ago, but they did get bad enough to be sent down, and now they’ve gotten good enough to not only get brought back up, but to be in the European section of the English standings.
I’m sure there’s some reason Villa can succeed and Burnley can’t. Villa probably has more money, or the king likes them more, or they aren’t in a town that depresses people (love you, Burnley, but let’s all call a spade a spade). Whatever the reason, please don’t tell me it. I’m pre-spinzoning this and telling myself that if Burnley gets spanked, it’s just more of an indication of Burnley’s impending greatness in the future.
What Needs to Happen for the Bulls to Clean House?
Lonzo Ball’s evidently almost ready to run again, which is good. As a society, we want more people to be physically well. For the Bulls? It probably doesn’t matter.
My question—and this is again an earnest one—is how bad the Bulls would have to get for the whole operation to be shut down. I don’t mean for them to fire everyone, either. I mean for Reinsdorf to sell the team. Pistons-level bad probably isn’t bad enough, is it?
The Bulls are getting respectable again. LaVine has been out long enough for the roster to be recovering. That means there’s a 37-million-dollar hole in the salary cap and no good draft picks on the way. Just when we thought they’d fallen out, the Bulls are in the NBA’s unintentionally socialist no-man’s land once again. Like a middle-class kid trying to afford college.
