College basketball showed why it's the best spectator sport in the world today as there were several exciting and meaningful games played in the two major Thanksgiving tournaments: the Battle 4 Atlantis and the Maui Invitational.
The Battle 4 Atlantis gave us four games in which three of them were upsets. North Carolina State beat (2) Arizona. Ugh. Tennessee needed overtime to knock off (18) Purdue. Ugh. Northern Iowa got by SMU. Enh. The only favored team to win in the Battle was 5th-ranked Villanova, but even they struggled against Western Kentucky, a team that should be favored in Conference USA this season. While the upsets do provide an element of excitement, this ultimately f**ks up the rest of the tournament. The semifinal matchups are Villanova/Tennessee and North Carolina State/Northern Iowa. Good, but not great. This is a rare time where I am thankful for a consolation bracket. The 5th place game (ideally Arizona vs Purdue) will be more interesting than the championship (ideally Villanova vs North Carolina State). But the way this tournament went down today, I'm sure Nova will go down and either Arizona or Purdue will lose again. This tournament already turned into a s**tshow, so we might as well burn it all to the ground.
Predicitons: Villanova over Tennessee; NC State over Northern Iowa; Arizona over SMU; Purdue over Western Kentucky
The Maui Invitational thankfully made up for the Battle 4 Atlantis crap and gave us an awesome championship between (6) Wichita State and (13) Notre Dame. Wichita State literally dominated the entire game. They were up by 15 at one point and looked poised to close the game out without a problem. Then the Irish woke up. Bonzie Colson started knocking down shots, and Matt Farrell revved up his intensity. With about 30 seconds left, ND had the ball down by 3 points. Then Bonzie Colson airballed a 3-pointer with 13 seconds left, and all hope was lost for the Irish. BUT WAIT. Matt Farrell stole the in-bounds pass and dished it to Colson for a layup. 66-65 Shockers. Notre Dame fouled Austin Reeves and sent him to the line where he missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Matt Farrell attempted to get to the cup on the ensuing possession but was ferociously denied. After the scrap for the rebound, a jump ball was called, giving Notre Dame the ball with 3.3 seconds left. Mike Brey then drew up a genius out-of-bounds play that got Martinas Geben fouled with 2.3 seconds remaining. His first free throw hit the back iron and bounced in the air, then the front rim, then in. His second one was made in a cleaner fashion. ND leads 67-66. Wichita State tried to pass the ball to halfcourt from their own baseline, but Landry Shamet caught it and turned it over soonafter. NOTRE DAME WINS.
This was an absolutely wild finish. After seeing this, I think both Wichita State and Notre Dame are legit top-10 teams in America. Screw Kentucky. The Shockers and the Irish are far superior right now.
Also in the Maui, I got my wish as Chaminade curb-stomped California 96-72. Yeah, I'm not kidding; look it up. Michigan beat VCU in a great consolation championship, and Marquette looked good in a win against LSU even though Tremont Waters torched them for 39 points.
OTHER NEWS:
-Brian Bowen won't be playing for Louisville this season (check Twitter).
-The Celtics finally lost.
-Vanderbilt got its 2nd Top-15 2018 recruit as Simi Shittu announced he'll be a Commodore.
-Kyron Cartwright of Providence had the craziest buzzer-beater of the year as he got the win against Belmont.
-The PK80s start tomorrow, so pay attention to that.
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