The NIT is now close enough that some teams are appearing on the right side of 50% likely to make the field in our model. These teams are by no means assured a position in the greatest tournament in the Milky Way, but they deserve our appreciation nonetheless, and they’re teams on which we’re keeping a close eye.
Rhode Island (50.0% NIT Likely)
URI-Nation feels great these days, and with good reason. The Rams have won six straight, raging past their neighbors to the north (I think I tweeted something this weekend about URI being in Providence—sorry to all Rhode Islanders if I did that) and planting themselves firmly in the NIT picture. With no notable non-conference victories but a nice little non-conference schedule, losing twice to Dayton and avoiding any real bad upsets (losing to Davidson on the road would be fine, losing to Saint Joe’s at home would not) appears a strong path to not only an NIT bid, but even a home game, most likely against the likes of Yale, Colgate, or even St. John’s. We round up around here, and that’s because with URI-Nation, this glass is half full.
Xavier (50.3% NIT Likely)
After winning Wednesday’s Game of the NITe against Georgetown, the Musketeers calmly sat down against Creighton in the latest chapter of a well-crafted NIT approach. If Travis Steele, the embodiment of Cincinnati and a man Nature endowed with a widow’s peak that borders on a mohawk, makes his second NIT in his second year of head-coaching, the hype will be tremendous.
Georgetown (50.3% NIT Likely)
Georgetown has fallen in lockstep with their less academically pompous, still socioeconomically pompous cousins to the west, matching their NIT probability exactly entering tonight’s contests. In fact, Patrick Ewing’s route to NIT relevance has been more consistent than Steele’s, though it’s felt more like a roller coaster at times. By law, these two teams can’t be in the same side of a region, and if the St. John’s surge withers, they might not be allowed in the same region at all. Which means the Big East has a shot at not just an all-Big East semifinal in Madison Square Garden, but perhaps a one-conference title game.
Memphis (50.4% NIT Likely)
Congratulate yourself, dear reader, for you’ve known all along that Memphis isn’t as good as the media would have one believe. With a crowning achievement of losing to Oregon by eight, this is an NIT team through and through, though continued losses would imperil their currently strong case.
North Texas (51.1% NIT Likely)
I’m not sure we’ve put conference tiebreakers into our model yet, but for the sake of this, let’s assume we have and that UNT is still this significantly favored over Western Kentucky in the Conference USA race.
America’s team (because that’s what we call the C-USA leader) began the year 4-7. One of those wins was over a Division II team, another came over North Carolina A&T, and neither of the others were against Eastern Michigan, because North Texas only scored 51 against them at home.
Yet, here they are, and perhaps this is part of why the Mean Green has stolen our hearts the way they have. They aren’t quick. They don’t play good defense. We aren’t sure if they’re actually good at all, or if Conference USA just really did them a solid by making Rice the team they play twice. In other words, we see ourselves in them.
Akron (51.9% NIT Likely)
Akron. King of waning plains. King of dirty rivers. King of scrapyards and abandoned ballrooms and probably a Panera but not a very nice one.
We’ve talked enough about the Zips on here that you, dear reader, know their names by heart. Or at least their name: Zips. But if you do remember the others, you know that if the fates allow, Loren Cristian Jackson is going to play his way through the most primal parts of our souls this March, and Xeyrius Williams will do grown man things, and Tyler Cheese will continue to be named Cheese.
Zip zip.
Virginia Tech (52.8% NIT Likely)
You put your right foot in.
You take your right foot out.
You lose to Boston College and you shake it all about.
You do the Hokies Pokey and you aim straight for the crown.
That’s what it’s all about.
