Pre-Season NIT TipOff: Winners and Losers

Winners
* Butler: Got enough wins to get an at-large bid assuming they don't screw up by losing games they are not supposed to. Wins over Notre Dame, Indiana, Tennessee, and NC-giant killer Gonzaga. The Butler offense will become the new Princeton offense ;-)

* Gonzaga: Beating North Carolina. This is as significant as any victory for the Zags, as most people expected them not to be as good without Ammo and Batista. Remember the Zags played this game without injured Larry Graganious (sp?), injured Theo Davis, and late-December-eligible Micah Downs (injured, out until early February) and big man Burgess. Along the way they picked up wins over the pesky Rice and Baylor teams. The Butler loss brought them back to reality, which in a way it's a good thing as they don't let this get to their heads.



Losers
* North Carolina: Lost to Gonzaga, but it wasn't just the loss, but the way they lost. Hansbro proved that he is human after all by having a horrible game (by his standards). Perhaps this is the achilles Heel of the Tar-Heels? Contain Psycho-T and the rest of the team loses its bite? Well maybe this worked right now, but once the new players get accustomed to Roy's system, containing Psycho-T won't be enough. On the other hand, this may be a good thing for Roy as his players may be more likely to listen and learn after a humbling loss to the Zags.

* Indiana: The loss to Butler doesn't look as bad now, but they were supposed to get to MSG and get some national exposure. They didn't.

* Notre Dame: Yet another Dookie coach failing to live up to expectations when removed from the "magic cloud" of Coach K. That's because once they are not at Duke, they don't get preferential treatments from the NCAA, the media or the refs. And they are not allowed to blatantly violate recruiting rules via a nationwide American Express ad that obviously recruits players ("I want you to...") etc. One of these days I will analyze the text of those ads and point out all the NCAA violations in them! :-)


Draw
* Tennessee: A work-in-progress rotation of about ten players, they had their good and bad segments, Ramar Smith, Crews and Chism look very very promising once they mature.