Welcome to Second Guess Tuesday.
Here are the chilly opinions du jour.
- Marshall University isn’t going to the 2023 NCAA basketball tournament, but one of the Herd’s players is.
Phenomenal leaper Taevion Kinsey has been invited to compete in the “College Slam Dunk & 3-Point Championships.”
The 6-foot-5 senior will show off his most spectacular dunks at 7:30 p.m. on March 30 in the Hoops House, located at the Bayou Music Center in downtown Houston.
The event will be broadcast live on ESPN2.
“I’m going to have to come up with some new stuff,” said Kinsey with a grin.
- Riddle me this …
After a season-long serenade of how the Big 12 is head-and-shoulders the toughest conference in NCAA basketball, I find it interesting — not to mention perplexing — that the Big 12 didn’t receive the most NCAA Tournament bids.
Yes, the Big 12 had seven.
But the Big Ten and the SEC had eight apiece.
Any way I do the math, that just doesn’t add up.
In case anybody is wondering, Kansas, Texas, Baylor, Kansas State, TCU, Iowa State and West Virginia received bids. The odd man out was Oklahoma State.
Yet, the premise remains.
Shouldn’t the hands-down toughest league in America get the most bids?
- Marshall’s hopes of receiving an NIT bid didn’t come to fruition.
But should it have?
Yes.
The Herd defeated Toledo, 100-85; beat Morehead State, 83-59; and trounced Southern Miss, 89-67, yet those three schools got NIT bids.
Does that make any sense? Of course not. What’s worse is MU defeated those NIT-bound schools by margins of 15, 24 and 22 points.
Yet, the Herd and its 24-8 record is staying home and that trio is advancing to the NIT.
Therein lies the problem.
The system is hopelessly flawed.
Yet, to be fair, MU was in charge of its own destiny. All the Herd had to do was show up for its regular-season-ending game at Old Dominion. But, instead, the Herd played arguably its worst game of the season, losing 71-67.
That’s why the Herd is tourney-less.
- Let’s hear it for Ginny Boggess.
The Hamlin High School grad (class of 1999) coached her No. 7-seeded Monmouth women’s basketball team to an eye-popping 80-55 rout of No. 1 seed Towson to win the Colonial Athletic Association championship.
It will be Monmouth’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1983 and only the second all-time appearance.
Hamlin is proud of you, Ginny.
- Huntington native Darnell Wright put on a show during the recent NFL Combine.
The former Huntington High School and University of Tennessee star offensive tackle measured 6-foot-5 and weighed 333 pounds. He has 9-inch hands and 33¾-inch arms. Wright also ran a 5.01 40-yard dash, ranking him sixth among offensive linemen.
He posted a 9-6 broad jump (No. 3 ranking) and a 29-inch vertical leap (No. 21).
Wright finished the combine with a RAC score of 9.47 — one of the highest marks among offensive linemen. His athleticism score of 85 was tied with former Georgia star Broderick Jones for second-best among offensive linemen.
Watch for Wright to be a first-round selection in the 2023 NFL Draft on April 27.
It couldn’t happen to a better young man.
