Summer school valedictorians: The running NIT thread

Moddy -- seems like you are nit picking

 

When you haven't so much as sniffed any sort of postseason in 9 years, which is the case for Southern Miss, you don't look askance at something called the CIT, which I believe stands for the Collegeinsider.com Tournament. Trust me, they're glad to be in this thing. Southern plays Thursday at La. Tech and if they win, there's talk that they'll host a second-round game in Hattiesburg, which might actually draw a few more than the usual friends, family and support staff that attend USM home games.

And I believe they'll have a pretty good crowd tonight at the Hump when Jackson State plays the Pups in Starkvegas for an NIT game. Who knows, maybe JSU will bring the pep band version of the Sonic Boom. That would make for a very entertaining evening.

 

Well, to be sure, it is the National Invitation Tournament.
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Tonight's matchup between MSU and Jackson State brings back memories in Mississippi of a game from the same tourney in 1979 that did a lot to move forward race relations in our state.

MSU had a drought from 1963 to 1991 where it didn't appear in the NCAA tourney.
And 1979 was the only postseason appearance of any kind in that drought.
State (18-8) was slotted to host Alcorn State in what would be the first matchup between any of the state's large universities and a historically black college
A sellout crowd packed Humphrey Coliseum and and a statewide TV audience watched as Alcorn, with future Houston Rocket player and assistant coach Larry "Mr. Mean" Smith, won in the final seconds, 80-78.
The Braves were next sent to Bloomington where Bobby Knight won by four, then spoke glowingly of recent college hall of fame inductee Davey Whitney and his squad.

The game is encapsulated on a viewing kiosk at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in Jackson and it happened just 8 or 9 years after the state's public schools desegregated. I was in 9th grade and my P.E. teacher was a former Alcorn quarterback, Haney Catchings, who was later head coach for some dismal Prairie View teams (PVA&M won the SWAC grid title this year ... can anyone believe it?).
We jawed about that NIT game for days until I wound up eating crow.

Carry on.

 

The shame in all of this is that I remember seeing Jim Volvano "score" the final points in Carmichael after NC State lost to UNC. Great moment by a guy who didn't take himself too seriously.

 

I think Kentucky played an NIT game at Memorial Gym several years ago, and even Georgetown played one in its tiny on-campus gym not that long ago.

 

Dear Jeff Capel/Ben Howland:
You slightly overdid the "screwing up your season" routine, unlike Roy Williams' club.
Would've loved having you.

Sincerely,
The NIT committee

 

Oh, and Jeff, Norman High School's gym was open for your first-round game. That wasn't a reason to tank it the last three weeks.

 

Kentucky did that last year. Cats couldn't use Rupp because the state high school boys' tourney was there Wednesday-Saturday.

 

The same Larry Smith that's now the head coach at Alcorn.
I'm sure he had better experiences as a player. Alcorn was 2-24 this season and got drubbed by, among others, Ohio State and Kansas.

 

Lets go Heels. If we lose we will have a losing record since we went 8-20 under Doherty in the 2001-2002 season.