MOCS MADNESS: Chattanooga made me care about the NIT

Historically, the problem with the NIT is that nobody cares. Chattanooga cared, so I cared too.

In the past few weeks, this newsletter has transformed entirely into a Chattanooga Mocs website. Have I ever been to Chattanooga? No. Do I know anybody who went to UT-Chattanooga? No. Do I have any opinions on the soccer fight the other night between the Chattanooga Red Wolves and Chattanooga SC? Actually, yes, but only after reading about it online.

But these mockingbirds were unkillable in a captivating run to the NIT title. They won five straight games as a betting underdog, playing four overtimes and hitting approximately one million clutch threes. Also, they have a guy named Honor and a guy named Bash. (One plays by the rules. One just wants to play. HONOR AND BASH, coming to the USA Network this fall.)

Historically, the problem with the NIT is that nobody cares. Chattanooga cared. Former Mocs basketball player Terrell Owens was in the front row going wild, mimicking the team’s celebrations on every clutch shot. (Classic mockingbird move!) He was wearing a Chattanooga hoodie and a Chattanooga hat and eventually took off the hoodie to reveal a Chattanooga shirt.

T.O. skipped his own Pro Football Hall of Fame induction. He wouldn’t miss the NIT final for the world, though. Got on a plane and everything.

It finished with a thriller against UC-Irvine. Two hyphenated schools from totally different parts of the country with no history and nothing in common… and it was incredible. In the final 15 seconds of regulation, the two sides traded fouls on 3-point shooters—both questionable calls, especially the one that gave Chattanooga three shots. And in the final 10 seconds of overtime, Chattanooga took the lead and Irvine nearly took it back:

The winner came from Garrison Keeslar, a senior transfer from Division II Walsh University who clearly had no desire to hit a game-winning shot (and is almost definitely named for the disgraced NPR guy, right?) Keeslar finished the season with more assists than made baskets, and as he got the ball time and time again down the stretch, he kept trying to pass. With a minute left, Keeslar went Ben Simmons, ignoring an uncontested layup in a one-point game, passing the ball to a shooter who missed. With 20 seconds to go, he was left wide-open behind the arc, but passed up the three. With 15 seconds left, he once again got the ball behind the arc with no defender in sight, but drove instead. His defender sagged off in anticipation of yet another pass, leaving Keeslar with a completely uncontested free throw line jumper.

Swish. A reluctant game-winner. He simply could not escape destiny.

That left the Anteaters with two seconds to go the length of the court. Miraculously, they did, lobbing the ball to 7-foot-1 center Bent Leuchten, who drew enough attention to get the ball to Jurian Dixon directly in front of the basket. But Dixon only had a split second to catch, gather, and get the ball up to the hoop… and short-armed the open game-winner from just a few feet away. Dixon slammed the ball to the ground in despair.

It’s been a tough year for fans of The Little Guys, which you probably are if you’re reading this. There were no big upsets in the men’s or women’s NCAA Tournament, and the one we got (12-seed Drake beating Missouri) was immediately followed by Drake’s head coach leaving for Iowa. The Final Four on the men’s side is all 1-seeds, the women’s side is three 1-seeds and a single 2-seed, UConn, the winningest program in the sport’s history. As someone whose college basketball worldview is heavily dependent on the unexpected and the unusual… it’s been alarming. I’m trying to figure out whether it’s a blip or the future.

Even the world of second-tier tournaments has been subject to moneyed conglomerates prioritizing optimization over the joy of ball: The NIT has been supplanted by the College Basketball Crown, an event co-owned by Fox Sports, which leaned on its contractual ties with the Big Ten, Big East, and Big 12 to coerce programs in those leagues into participating. (The Crown also offers $500,000 in payments to the athletes on the four semifinalists, which is hard to hate on.) The Big Money Men wanted to make more money from college basketball, and had the perfect solution: a tournament with 13-20 Arizona State and 14-20 DePaul.

It seemed like the death knell for the NIT, a tournament which has steadily dropped in stature for decades. Even ten years ago, it was rare for teams to turn down NIT bids. (I remember a mini-firestorm when LSU did it in 2016. Hey! That’s two Ben Simmons references in one article.) In recent years, it had become common. In response, the NIT had tried to make itself a tournament for mediocre power conference teams, eliminating its long-standing tradition of giving automatic bids to mid-major regular season champions teams like Chattanooga. In 2023, they instead decided to give out automatic bids to two teams from each power conference.

To summarize, their plan to fix the problem of power conference teams declining bids was… to give more bids to the power conference teams which were declining bids. Most ignored the switch. Only three power conference teams (SMU, Stanford, and Oklahoma State) participated in the NIT this year. Most chose spring break or the Crown.

It was a blessing in disguise for the NIT. The top 16 teams in the NIT actually had a slightly higher NET rating than the 16 teams in the Crown. And that doesn’t even factor in the general disinterest among teams contractually obligated to participate in the Crown. 16-16 Utah showed up with an interim coach, and 18-15 Georgetown was without four of its five starters.

In the NIT, I kept thinking to myself: holy crap, this random mid-major team packed the building for the NIT quarterfinals! Look at Chattanooga’s win over Bradley in Peoria, Illinois. They cared too! Not an empty seat in that lower bowl! Everybody standing down the stretch!

The NIT wasn’t an afterthought or a consolation for Chattanooga. It was one of the greatest moments in the school’s basketball history, and the last chance to play together as a team. They seized it.

And when teams and fans care about winning something, I care too. Thanks to the Mocs for making must-see magic at the end of a bleak March.