I get it. Part of broadcasters’ job is to give context on what a game means in the broader picture. If I’m casually watching hockey, I like to know where each team is in the standings and what chance they have of winning the Stanley Cup. I would imagine that for those who don’t follow college basketball closely, the same is true, but for the NIT. You can practically hear the words echo from couches around the country:
Casual Sports Fan: Hello, Mr. or Mrs. Broadcaster. Please tell me about NC State’s NIT chances. Do it in a roundabout way, though. Pretend you’re talking about that other tournament!
So, yes, all this quadrant talk is a response to natural demand. The problem is: It sounds really lame. It sounds very boring. You can practically hear that couch again:
Broadcaster: And if Syracuse wins this game, Jim, that would be another Quadrant I win for the Orange!
Casual Sports Fan: Ahh, so you want this thing called Quadrant I wins?
Broadcaster: Yes.
Casual Sports Fan: If you have the most, you go to the NCAA T*urnament?
Broadcaster: Well, kind of.
Casual Sports Fan: What do you mean? Do you have to have more than other teams?
Broadcaster: I mean, well, in a way…
Casual Sports Fan: What?
Broadcaster: Look, buddy, I’m commentating ACC basketball games. And not even the ones on The CW! The NCAA needed a better way to define good wins and bad losses, because it’s fucking impossible for someone to pay attention to 100 different college basketball teams while doing a day job, but we need to use the committee because the two metrics the NCAA likes the most for how deserving a team is of a bid are 1) a hobby by Michigan State’s assistant AD and 2) a system ESPN built before it gutted its stats division, and for some reason the ESPN one aggressively punishes schools for being located at high elevations. You want me to talk about elevation, pal?! I’ll talk about elevation. Or are you going to shut the hell up and let me talk about how if Syracuse wins by too many points, this will no longer be a Quadrant I win because NC State will be ranked 76th or worse in the NET rankings, so it’s in Syracuse’s best interests to tone down this lead and stop this from becoming a Quadrant II game.
Casual Sports Fan: *tries to log into ESPN+ so they can watch hockey*
We have our quarrels with the NCAA T*urnament. Those are well-documented. But the selection process isn’t terrible. Is it perfect? No. But all the good objective alternatives we have are either theoretical or flawed, and this subjective process both sells (Selection Shows are electric) and is getting better over time. The problem is that the NCAA T*urnament selection process is painfully arbitrary and inexact, especially when medium teams have messy résumés. This is especially bad, because, well, where does the process matter the most? On the bubble. A region inhabited by medium teams with messy résumés. What we have then is a situation where the committee can’t say exactly what matters for teams, and broadcasters don’t really know how the process works, and the NCAA didn’t exactly market this whole thing in a way that inspires confidence. Quadrants? A rating system where beating a team up can devalue your own win? This stuff can exist. It exists for good reasons. But even smart people struggle to wrap their heads around the concept where a team can drop in any ranking without playing. God bless ESPN’s 24th-string play-by-play guy when he’s trying to talk about Florida State’s Quadrant III losses.
You’re not going to get good selection talk during a college basketball broadcast. Not even Joe Lunardi, bless that man, is going to add anything you can’t find with a little bit of internet knowhow. He certainly isn’t going to add anything permanently pertinent, with a fifth of the season left when you count conference tournaments. The problem, though, is that Americans fuckin’ love the NCAA T*urnament, and so college basketball coverage boxes out things like conference races and curious rivalries in favor of droning on over whether Michigan State should be a 9-seed or an 8-seed.
(You know who doesn’t care a lot about quadrants, or so it seems? The NIT committee. Big NET fans, though, at least the last two years.)
Creighton Finally Joined the Big East
I don’t have a problem with Dan Hurley allegedly telling an undergraduate “I will knock you out” last night in Omaha. For one thing, these kids have turned 18. Either we treat them like adults or we stop pretending they’re not children in all the other ways. For another, the incident gave us a great performance by the poor manager trying to shield his head coach from imaginary thrown objects (guessing that kid’s from New York or Boston, not Omaha). For a third, isn’t Dan Hurley legally obligated to say that? I thought it was like how black belts have to register their hands as lethal weapons. If Dan Hurley isn’t going to wear a shirt that says, “I’m Dan Hurley, and I’m fucking crazy,” he should at least have to warn Creighton students when they’re getting close to making him decapitate them. They put signs around bear enclosures. Same thing.
Anyway, congratulations to Creighton on finally provoking a coach to want to fight someone. At long last, you’re officially a Big East program.
Penny vs. Pitino
St. John’s and Memphis are both in action again toNITe, and it’s all anyone can talk about. From the woke hipster coffee shops to the underground white supremacist rallies to the country clubs and aisles of CVS (I’ve been doing a lot of opposition research today, on many corners of society), the people want to know: Will Penny Hardaway make the NIT? Will Rick Pitino call in a hit on himself as retribution for poorly identifying character while recruiting?
We don’t have answers for you here. You certainly won’t find them on the broadcasts, either. But somewhere in Memphis’s game against Charlotte and somewhere in St. John’s visit to Georgetown, there is NIT relevance. You and I won’t have our say. We have to settle to watch. But fate? Fate is going to have a field day on the basketball court this evening.
The Bulls Are Not the Bears
Something occurred to me today while leaping out of my chair at seeing Sam Vecenie’s latest mock draft send Reed Sheppard to the Bulls.
The Bulls aren’t that bad.
With the Bears, the reasonable expectation when reading mock drafts is to weep a little for the men mentioned therin. Caleb Williams? That poor soul. But the Bulls probably wouldn’t mess up Reed Sheppard. They probably won’t mess up whoever they end up with the next time they have a draft pick (I don’t remember if this year’s is protected or anything—let a guy live). That player will just not be good enough to lead them to a title, or to anywhere in a title’s near vicinity. He’ll be fine. Maybe even good! But the team will max out as a first round playoff underdog. If you gave the Bears the kind of success the Bulls have enjoyed since Michael Jordan departed—playoff appearances every second or third year, a handful of advancements past the first round—their lives would become less sad by a factor of hundreds. The Bulls aren’t a dumpster fire. They’re just mediocre.
Etc.
The NIT:
- Well, the big story of the night was Texas A&M losing at home to Arkansas, something which could always reinvigorate the Hogs but hopefully merely means we’ll get more Buzz Williams NIT content next month. Let me say it, since so many are beating around the bush: I don’t want any Mountain West teams in the NIT. I will take Nevada—because I love Reno and Steve Alford coming home to Indiana for the Final Four would be cool—but give me these Aggies, not the Utah State ones (I recently learned Utah State is not as close to the NIT as I had them on the whiteboard in my garage, partly because they beat San Diego State last night when I was strategically prepared for them to lose).
- Syracuse got a nice road win in Raleigh, and while it’s undoubtedly not as good as ACC fans assume, it’s not a bad road win. Syracuse should make the NIT. Might make some recent history with their NET rating and NIT berths (I think 85th might be the worst to make it these last two years), but we would like to claim the Orange here.
- The Basketball Egg Bowl should be the star of the show tonight, especially if the SEC is really as much better than the Southland Conference as it says it is. Fight each other. You won’t! Let’s see what Chris Beard can do when it’s a grown man on the other side of the thing. Also excited for Providence going to Xavier, the aforementioned Charlotte–Memphis affair, and obviously Nebraska at Indiana. Nebraska at Indiana is special. This is what James Naismith envisioned when he started throwing inflated spheres into fruit packages: A likable underdog with hopes of doing historic things playing a no-upside game against a team in the exact opposite situation (historic team wanting to be a likable underdog), all in front of a few thousand people at their wit’s end.
Joe Kelly, the Ottawa Senators:
- It appears our favorite relief pitcher went golfing yesterday. We didn’t know how badly we wanted an Inland Empire hat. (Do Dodgers social media people follow Joe Kelly everywhere he goes? Should I apply?)
- The Sens rallied from two down to force overtime against the Panthers, getting three points in two games in Florida. I think this is good. But, you know. The standings and such.
