Something bad can, something very bad, but nothing good. To use a simile SEC fans will understand: Hosting South Carolina is like driving around with a gun in your backseat. That’s what makes it a big win if it happens.Ī big loss if it happens? Mississippi State’s. There isn’t that much of a reason to think they will-the game is at Allen Fieldhouse, Kansas is favored by something like a dozen, I assume-but that’s kind of the point. The biggest one here is probably Texas Tech playing Kansas. 10:30 PM EST: Fresno State New Mexico (FS1).9:00 PM EST: South Carolina Mississippi State (SECN).9:00 PM EST: San Diego State Boise State (CBSSN).I want people who earnestly believe that the NCA* *********t selection committee won’t bend things for UNC the way they bent them for Michigan State two years ago to say UNC is somehow getting screwed. I want bracketologists to be unhinged on Twitter. And we want to see peoples’ heads explode over it. We want UNC to lose a Q1 win toNITe through no action of their own. We want Virginia’s NET ranking in the 30s, and not 30. ![]() We want Virginia to lose this game, and to lose it badly. It follows, then, that we want the opposite. If Virginia drops past that? Poof! Q1 win, gone.īecause our occupying tournament’s selection committee places so much stock in Q1 results, UNC is in a boat now where they really want Virginia to win this game, tonight, and ideally to do it by more than a handful of points, because even a close win would be risky. ![]() Where’s the Q1 line? Between 30 th and 31 st, if the game is a home game like that one was for UNC. Perhaps you’ve heard, watching any college basketball game and/or SportsCenter over the last month, that UNC is in need of Q1 wins. The great thing about the quadrant system on NCA* *********t Team Sheets is that it helps quantify good wins and bad losses in a specific, explicit way, rather than just leaving the definition of ‘good win’ as ‘name brand.’ The bad thing is that there are arbitrary lines between quadrants because they set this up in a quaternary fashion instead of just giving each win a score or a rank or something. (Clemson fans, winning this would probably move you to the upper bubble but we don’t think it would move you out of our grasp.) But again: We aren’t above admitting this is not about Clemson. Honestly, this should probably be about Clemson. It’s for the NIT’s good, after all.Īnyway, here are the big ones to watch with these two toNITe, in addition to the Upper Bubble games I’m guessing we’ll list below (we really don’t sketch these posts out, we just open Microsoft Word and let it rip): We want both in the NIT, and we’re not above admitting that. The other is a big school close to my hometown attended by a lot of our friends. One of them is among the programs the mainstream media calls the most storied in college basketball. I’m sorry but we’re not going to not focus on UNC and Wisconsin. They haven’t done enough to command that specific disrespect. Meeting arbitrary thresholds like having a. But Seton Hall is in the mix too, and they need wins. Bottom line? Win it, Villanova.Īnd why are we only talking about Villanova? Is it because they’re a bigger brand, and a more prestigious program, and a more unusual NIT participant? Yes. In fact, the trouble they’re in right now is that they might lose both of them. If they sweep the pair? Sure, they’re in trouble, but they aren’t in trouble yet. They’re close to even money this evening at Seton Hall, they should be a narrow underdog on Saturday when UConn comes to the Main Line (just kidding, the game’s in Philly, again we totally knew that this is not us covering our tracks), and they need to win one of those if they don’t want to have to win two in the Big East Tournament. ![]() Not Xavier, Joe! You were all over Xavier! We’ve been trying to make up for this all by mentioning Justin Moore more than any other website on The Internet™.)Ī thing about Villanova is that they aren’t out of the bottom bubble woods. Joe even blogged asking if there was something he was missing with Xavier because a Nova/Xavier line seemed off. (We didn’t realize for an embarrassingly long time that Moore was back. The gate is narrow, but it’s not that narrow. Justin Moore’s healthy, and the Wildcats are playing so well that people are making bold claims about their ability to miss the NIT on the *other* side. 8:30 PM EST: Villanova Seton Hall (FS1).That’s the number of teams that are in the NIT! Wow. (Everyone please go wish my brother Will a happy birthday right now. With basketball games that will have NIT fans in a downright tizzy. It’s morning, and that means afternoon is on its way, and after the afternoon? That’s the night.
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