It's mid-March, and we all know what this means--millions of hours of productivity lost (an interesting take, though, on employers giving up caring), thousands of vasectomies performed, and my completely uninformed bracket completely busted by the end of Day 1. That's right, it's NIT time!!!
Look, I get that the basketball elite are all in the NCAA, but Cal is rarely among the basketball elite, so regular appearances in the NIT (and in 1999...VICTORY!) is usually the best we wounded Bears can hope for. So instead, the personal stakes are in the NIT, where Cal is a 2-seed in the same bracket as my graduate school, UC Irvine, an 8-seed. Potentially an agonizing decision for me to make (okay, not really--the Bears have my loyalty over aspiring-ly fearsome Ant-bears), but at least Round 1 is easy, since Cal takes on Utah Valley, which has thrice not hired me (that's right, personal slights are disproportionately influential here at PhD Sports Talk--Barry Bonds hatitude is forthcoming, I'm sure). And obviously I have to pull for Irvine in Round 1 as well, because...damn Methodists!
Games will be broadcast on ESPN3, so expand your cable package ASAP to follow the trials, tribulations, tragedies and triumphs of Roger Moute a Bidias, Cal's secret weapon and one of this blog's NCAA basketball-name All-Stars.
According to an article I read somewhere (can't remember where, don't care to look for it), there was a suggestion that Cal fans may have felt snubbed. Wasn't our record 18-13, or 18-14? That's not a snub! A tournament spot would have been a joke. I don't feel snubbed by the committee, I feel snubbed by a team that underachieved in PAC-12 play.
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