Never shy about tooting my own horn, a little tooting is in order. Just a little.
On one side of the A10 Tournament bracket, UMass let me down in overtime vs. George Washington on Wednesday afternoon, but after that I had Rhode Island and George Mason winning in the second round (accurate), Rhody bouncing VCU and St. Bonaventure defeating Mason in the quarterfinals (accurate again) and Bona ousting URI in the semifinals to reach the championship game (accurate yet again). Not bad.
Then there was the other side of the bracket, where I had Davidson (accurate) and the Flyers reaching the semis. My grand plan had Richmond defeating St. Louis in the quarterfinals Thursday night and advancing to face the Flyers on Friday, and it appeared for quite a while like the Spiders might deliver ... before they let a 6-point lead evaporate in the final six minutes.
Not to fret. The worry then, I thought, wasn't so much about beating St. Louis on Friday as it was about beating St. Louis and Davidson on back-to-back nights. I thought wrong.
At this point, there's really no point in beating the devil out of the details ... like the turnovers, or the fact that the Flyers were within two with 4:44 to play and were outscored 11-4 the rest of the way, or that Ryan Mikesell, a true warrior all season, ran into a painfully ill-timed doughnut on the scoring sheet. To me, this was mostly about the pain in Obi Toppin's left knee. When you lose what he brings for the final six minutes of the first half and then witness the gimp and the limp in the second, you have to expect that a whole bunch of stuff with this group is going to drift out of whack. Let's just hope the Billikens' success in Brooklyn doesn't give them the tiebreaker when the Big East finally decides to expand ...
So now it's on to the other March madness known as the NIT, where the NCAA inserts 32 teams into a petri dish of experimental rules for the purpose of who knows what. If the idea behind the concocted nonsense is to bring some interest to this nonevent, I, for one, am unmoved. I'm also uninspired by the odd notion of in some way avenging McKinley Wright's decision to bail on Dayton for a Rocky Mountain high, or by the silly idea of showing Xavier who's boss should the opportunity arise. I mean, would victories over Colorado and Xavier put Dayton on next year's NCAA bubble?
I will, however, share a brief hallucination that overcame me while inhaling the exhaust fumes and whatever else was in the air around the Port Authority bus terminal in New York the other day: What if NIT teams were allowed to use some/all of the redshirts and transfers who have been practicing with their teams all season, without it counting against their eligibility? At least then I might actually be motivated to watch.
Never mind, it was just a hallucination.
Wake me if the Flyers make it to the Garden.
On one side of the A10 Tournament bracket, UMass let me down in overtime vs. George Washington on Wednesday afternoon, but after that I had Rhode Island and George Mason winning in the second round (accurate), Rhody bouncing VCU and St. Bonaventure defeating Mason in the quarterfinals (accurate again) and Bona ousting URI in the semifinals to reach the championship game (accurate yet again). Not bad.
Then there was the other side of the bracket, where I had Davidson (accurate) and the Flyers reaching the semis. My grand plan had Richmond defeating St. Louis in the quarterfinals Thursday night and advancing to face the Flyers on Friday, and it appeared for quite a while like the Spiders might deliver ... before they let a 6-point lead evaporate in the final six minutes.
Not to fret. The worry then, I thought, wasn't so much about beating St. Louis on Friday as it was about beating St. Louis and Davidson on back-to-back nights. I thought wrong.
At this point, there's really no point in beating the devil out of the details ... like the turnovers, or the fact that the Flyers were within two with 4:44 to play and were outscored 11-4 the rest of the way, or that Ryan Mikesell, a true warrior all season, ran into a painfully ill-timed doughnut on the scoring sheet. To me, this was mostly about the pain in Obi Toppin's left knee. When you lose what he brings for the final six minutes of the first half and then witness the gimp and the limp in the second, you have to expect that a whole bunch of stuff with this group is going to drift out of whack. Let's just hope the Billikens' success in Brooklyn doesn't give them the tiebreaker when the Big East finally decides to expand ...
So now it's on to the other March madness known as the NIT, where the NCAA inserts 32 teams into a petri dish of experimental rules for the purpose of who knows what. If the idea behind the concocted nonsense is to bring some interest to this nonevent, I, for one, am unmoved. I'm also uninspired by the odd notion of in some way avenging McKinley Wright's decision to bail on Dayton for a Rocky Mountain high, or by the silly idea of showing Xavier who's boss should the opportunity arise. I mean, would victories over Colorado and Xavier put Dayton on next year's NCAA bubble?
I will, however, share a brief hallucination that overcame me while inhaling the exhaust fumes and whatever else was in the air around the Port Authority bus terminal in New York the other day: What if NIT teams were allowed to use some/all of the redshirts and transfers who have been practicing with their teams all season, without it counting against their eligibility? At least then I might actually be motivated to watch.
Never mind, it was just a hallucination.
Wake me if the Flyers make it to the Garden.
