While I honor Memphis’s 2021 NIT title, there are some in the NIT community who don’t, saying the tournament needs to have 32 teams and finish in Madison Square Garden. Anyway, I lead with this to say that while Texas is still an NIT champion to us all, they’re the NIT champion to some, raising the significance of this.
Texas is abandoning it’s men’s basketball program. And thus, finally, we have an explanation for why they moved on from Shaka Smart.
No, no, they’re not eliminating the team. They’re just reportedly trying to leave a basketball conference (for everyone not named Oklahoma) for a football conference (for everyone not named Kentucky). Out goes the basketball, in comes the football, and if you’re doing that, you’re just not going to be a men’s basketball school anymore, meaning you want to send the best coach in the game (or at least the nicest) to a basketball school, probably in exchange for some good prayers from the Jesuits in Milwaukee.
Glad it’s adding up. This has been troubling me these last four months.
