winning the NIT under shaka was so weird. i went to the opening game and sat courtside with my dad and a bunch of his old media/SID buddies, and there was maybe 1,500 people in the building. i’ve been to a pflugerville girls HS game at the FEC where the lower bowl was completely full and folks were sitting in the mezzanine. very strange experience to be playing NDSU or whoever and to literally be able to have conversations with their players during the game, which i did lol.
then when we won, i was really happy for our guys, as we had a really likable team who all wanted to play and win for each other (andrew jones, courtney ramey, roach, osetkowski, etc), and watching them celebrate on the court was a really nice moment. two seconds after that i was over i was all:
the title meant/means nothing to me. my local HS team winning state would mean more to me. there really is no point to that tournament anymore. it was a big deal 50 years ago, but at this point it really serves no purpose.