By Have Jumpshot Will Travel (a.k.a. Trashtalk Superstar)
Xavier and Nevada lost on Friday. Butler lost to Wright State earlier in the week. Before losing in their conference tournaments, all three teams were virtual locks to get into the NCAA Tournament. Guess what...they're still locks. When heavily favored mid major teams (teams certain to get NCAA bids) get upset in their conference tournaments, it sets off a chain of events that squeezes bubble teams. First, an unexpected team (like Wright State in the Horizon League) gets the conference's automatic bid. The heavily favored team then receives an at large bid to the NCAA Tournament, and since there are only 65 bids, one fewer bubble team gets to hear its name called on Selection Sunday.
Yesterday I predicted that Indiana would beat Illinois (the poster team for the proverbial bubble) in the Big Ten Tournament, and thereby eliminate Illinois' chances of getting an NCAA bid. I was wrong about that game. Illinois squeaked out a win in overtime. But I stand by my prediction that Illinois will be left out of the Dance. The Indiana win changes nothing.
Illinois. Is. Not. Good.
The Illini do not belong in the NCAA Tournament. Don't be fooled by their twenty-plus wins and fourth place Big Ten finish. They only have three decent wins this year. Even worse, they've only won one game on the road (and that was at Penn freakin' State). Illinois is spectacularly mediocre. They sit firmly on the bubble. So when the kids from Cham-bana travel to Rosemont for their first round NIT showdown with DePaul, they will have Nevada, Butler and Xavier to thank.
Have Jumpshot Will Travel (a.k.a. Trashtalk Superstar).
*EDIT: To all y'all haters: Note the timestamps on our (particularly my) posts. Some of my posts are added in the wee hours of the night/morning, at the end of long nights out or when I'm behind on things and have to pull an all-nighter. Other posts have been added bright and early in the morning (well, maybe not bright, it's usually still dark outside-that changes this weekend), before I leave the crib. The late night posts may be affected by alcohol abuse and/or by general exhaustion. Sometimes both. The bright 'n' early posts may be affected by exhaustion and/or time constraints. Often both.
Notice the time stamp on this post: a few minutes before 4:00 am on a Friday night/Saturday morning. Although that's uncharacteristically early for me to have called it a night and to have been home blogging, it's still pretty late. I often have a quick point that I'd like to make, start typing, and (while channeling the spirits-distilled spirits) just let it flow. That may just have been the case here, bitches.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
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3 comments:
Have jumpshot will travel, why do you hate the Illini? Your bio says you live in Chicago. Where is your state loyalty? I hope your not a Uof I alum. You must be an Indiana fan. You must of went to IU. You prolly love Kelvin $ampscum. I hope you IU people are proud. $ampscum will get you $anctioned by the NCAA. I hope you and Eric Gordon and his dad all enjoy staying home next March, when you guys will be on probation. Plus, you have to live in Indiana where theres sooo much to do. Plus, your diploma says IU (bwahahahaha!). LOL! Parkland (where I go) is a much better school. Sh#t, Ivy Tech is better then IU. LOL! It must suck 2 be you. The Illini would be a top 10-15 team if we had been healthy this year. All our injurys are why we struggled earlier. But were on a roll now. We make it sweet 16 to elite 8 if King Rich gets hot from downtown. He has NBA range. Chet is the best PG in the Big10 and nobody hustles harder out their. Pruitt's the best big in the B10. War-ren Car-ter will be a 1st round pick in the nba draft. Trent Meachum is from the 'paign (Centennial) booyah! If we get Carwell back for the tourny, we can't be stopped. Book it.
Save the Chief!
Nick,
I love your screen name. I hope it's meant to be ironic. I mentioned Adam Morrison's porn 'stache in a post today. I totally forgot about Nick
Smith's fantastic molester mustache. Nick Smith is a pimp!
As for the content of your comment, I must ask, are you fucking serious? Really. Your comment is either brilliant satire (lampooning simpleton Illini fans), or it's one of the stupidest thing I've ever read-that would be saying a lot, since I've read the Illini Scout board. BTW, I did not attend IU.
"or it's one of the stupidest thing I've ever read"
I meant to say "stupidest things", not "stupidest thing."
The juxtaposition of my typo and the concept that I was trying to convey is ironic and amusing. Kind of like Nick Smith's comment (if it was, indeed, intended as sarcasm).
I may not have attended IU, but, perhaps I should have.
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