1. Indiana State Is Better Than NC State
I point things out like this every NIT, because the NIT champion is usually comparable in its ability to at least one NCAA T*urnament team and I like to make NCAA To*rnament defenders squirm. This year, it’s especially good, because I think most college basketball fans get it. Indiana State is a better team than NC State. The Sycamores would be favored on a neutral court. We love NC State—we really wanted DJ Burns in our tournament—but that can’t get in the way of truth. The current NIT favorite is a better team than 25% of those in the other tournament’s Final Four.
What does this say? Mostly that the NCAA Tou*nament involves a lot of randomness, and that its dominant role in evaluations of different college basketball programs, players, and coaches is silly. Also, though, it’s a reminder that the NIT is pretty good. People like to say they don’t want the NIT because the basketball isn’t good enough. Then, they watch NC State.
2. Can Stefon Diggs Become the Diva Wide Receiver We Need?
I don’t know how the NFL salary cap works, so my apologies if this next tidbit is incorrect, but I believe the Bills took a salary cap hit in order to trade Stefon Diggs to the Texans today. They got good value back in the draft, but it doesn’t appear this trade was as simple as “let’s open up some space to better round our edges.” There’s an angle here where the Bills might have been wanting to get rid of Stefon Diggs.
Is Stefon Diggs a diva? I don’t know. But I hope he can become one. He seems like the best candidate right now to get into that Terrell Owens role which is so darn fun in the NFL. It’s best if it doesn’t get past TO status—I haven’t particularly enjoyed the last half-decade of Antonio Brown—but we could use some diva in the sporting world, and Stefon Diggs is the man we’re watching. I want Diggs to start hanging out with James Harden. A lot.
3. Burnley’s Bad Day
A lot of Burnley happened yesterday, and as the world’s preeminent NIT blogger who is semi-ironically a Burnley fan, it is my responsibility to break it down:
First, they had to move some fans because they were worried a section of the stadium roof might collapse. Whoops!
Second, Vincent Kompany got ejected (and later suspended a match) for protesting a very, very bad call which led to a Wolverhampton goal. The game ended in a tie. Should Burnley have won anyway? Yeah, but it was a really bad call. Those get old.
Third, Burnley’s auditors basically said “You’re counting on a lot of cash inflows that aren’t guaranteed, and since it looks like you’re going to be relegated, that’s going to create a crunch.” It doesn’t seem like anyone needs to be panicking about this yet, and so far the club has been pretty well-managed financially in the ALK Capital era (we’ve seen a lot of storylines like this that have all amounted to nothing). But it makes this Burnley fan wonder if the owners didn’t expect Kompany’s team to be quite this bad in 2023–24. Were they banking on staying up? How, as we have asked before, is this team probably worse than last year’s?
No complaints from us. This is why we got into Burnley fandom. The NIT vibes. #EarnedNotGiven
