Penn State is hosting George Mason in the NIT tonight, Happy St. Patrick's Day. Time to get my Irish on. Most have spent the last 2 days bitching why the Nittany Lions aren't in the NCAA Tournament. Granted, Mike Slive gave the most bullshit argument for Arizona's inclusion, possibly the finest work of a talking asshole since Ace Ventura, see Kevin's fine work over at BSD for actual stats and stuff for those that don't really follow the nuances of college basketball and need an explanation as the why. Regardless, from this point on, I'm putting an end to the whining about the schedule. I know, it wasn't great, but it's not what kept the team out of the Tournament. Stop crying the schedule is too weak! The schedule is too weak? The fucking schedule is too weak? You're weak! The season ended up hinging on 2 games and the team didn't come through, that's it, plain and simple. The season slipped away losing to Rhode Island, thus missing an opportunity to play Villanova, and closing out the regular season losing to Iowa. Penn State plays 'Nova instead of Towson, there's your strength of schedule out the window or conversely beats Iowa, locks up number 2 seed in the Big Ten and punches their ticket. Unfortunately, they've been inconsistently great and that's been the problem (that and free throw shooting). Celebrate the year and the team and stop crying.
P.S. ESPN can take ESPNU and shove it up their ass, no one gets your shitty offspring network. Put the worthless play-in game on it. Sláinte!
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2 comments:
If you're viewing the NCAA tournament as "you don't deserve to get in unless you stand a chance of going very far", then of course the 2 games lost ends the discussion.
Most people view it as a reward, however, which then makes those 2 games irrelevant - this isn't football; shit happens in individual games. And, no, replacing Towson with Villanova wouldn't have done enough to fix our awful, awful schedule.
Claiming credit for playing in the (insert supposedly mighty conference) while CHOOSING awful OOC games is the kind of crap we used to make fun of them for (in football) back when we were an independent.
We didn't deserve any reward, in other words. We chose shit; we got shit.
Replacing Towson with Villanova is precisely the difference between making the Tournament and not (see Minnesota). The bigger question is does the NCAA even know what the tournament is supposed to be? By implying it's for the championship means it should be selecting the best teams. I've heard the statement and I agree with it is really the only team that deserves to complain about not making the tournament is the winner of the NIT.
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