Tonight, Utah and Penn St square off in the NIT championship to battle for the title of 69th place… nice. Winning the NIT Championship should feel NICE and the victor should hold a special place in America’s heart. Watching Utah fans on twitter cheer as we observe every 69 jokes flying over their head is just so fun for everyone not invested in the game. In the first three sentences, I’m trying to give them a clue.
Simply put, The NIT is the deformed under achieving adopted middle child of the sports world. The NIT is the irrelevant losers bracket for teams that didn’t make the NCAA tournament. The games are aired on ESPN because the “Worldwide Leader” can’t afford broadcast rights for the NCAA tournament.
However, I feel the NIT championship gets too much flac. In my opinion, being ranked 69th is a lot more valuable than being 68th. Making a 5-0 postseason run feels a lot more satisfying than going 0-1. That’s where ESPN does a horrendous job of marketing the tournament as a whole. Why pay for broadcast rights if you aren’t going to at least try to make the games appealing. The Utah and Penn St game having a 7 pm EST is a joke based on the marketing from ESPN.
The problem with the NIT is the public views the participating teams as being total dog shit when in fact most of the teams in the field are quite good. Watching two above-average college basketball teams battle for 69th place in the Big Apple should be quite appealing.
Finishing 69th out of 360 is a very NICE way to end the season. As a college basketball player, I much rather cut down the nets and party in Manhattan than lose in the first round in the middle of Omaha freakin Nebraska. Got to love the teams that are playing with a chip on their shoulder and both the Utes and Nittany Lions fit the bill.
The NIT also gets weird with new rules: new three-point line, four quarters, longer lanes, and a shorter shot clock reset.
I am here to tell you the teams in the NIT matter. Not to mention, a handful of teams from NIT (Saint Mary’s, Middle Tennessee, USC) could probably beat many teams in the NCAA tournament. But we will save this argument for another time.
The NIT pits a matchup between two teams representing the worst power 6 conferences in college basketball. Both the PAC-12 and BIG have had miserable NCAA tournaments, however the two conference teams both have a representative in the NIT final. Do conferences get brownie points for NIT wins?
Now that I’m done making my case why the NIT championship matters, here’s a short preview of the actual game:
Both of these teams are motivated to cut down the nets. Utah is playing in their first NIT championship game in 44 years. The Utes are a senior-laden team looking to go out on a high note. They have won 10 of their last 12 games. They will at least try to give PAC-12 commissioner Larry Scott something to hang his hat on.
Penn St comes into the NIT playing their best basketball of the season. The Nittany Lions have won 6 of their last seven games and are coming off a 75-60 domination of Mississippi St in the NIT semifinal. The Nittany Lions are not messing around in the NIT. The country will get to see Penn State star Tony Carr light up the scoreboard one more time this season. The sophomore guard leads the Lions with 19.7 points per game. Considering where the Nittany Lions program was a few years ago, an NIT championship would be a huge accomplishment for this program.
Make sure to check out the NIT airing at 7pm EST on ESPN. March is winding down and this is a madness you do not want to miss.