This is an opinion column.
Let’s get right to the question of the day, a fun conversation starter during March Madness. Is it better to lose in the first round of the NCAA Tournament or win the NIT?
Don’t ask me. Ask Andy Kennedy and UAB. They’re on the brink of history. By midnight Birmingham time tonight, they may be able to answer that question with authority.
The Blazers went one-and-done in the Big Dance last year. They can capture the NIT championship tonight in Las Vegas. Beat North Texas, which they did three weeks ago in the C-USA Tournament semifinals, and the Blazers will do something no Division I program in this state has done.
Earn a trophy and a banner as the last team on the last line of a postseason bracket. No one else left to survive. Nowhere else still to advance but up a ladder with a pair of scissors. That’s where the best kind of basketball memento awaits.
Your snippet of net. Your piece of history. No, it won’t earn Jelly Walker or Ty Brewer a cameo on “One Shining Moment,” but it’s still kind of a big deal. In some ways, going 5-0 after Selection Sunday just means more than a quick round-trip to Pittsburgh for a 14-point defeat.
That’s how the 2022 UAB season ended, watching underseeded Houston shoot the lights out en route to an 82-68 win on its way to the Elite Eight. Still, there were plenty of positives for Kennedy’s second UAB team. Winning the Conference USA Tournament and getting back to the Big Dance for the first time since 2015. Seeing the national spotlight shine on Jelly’s name, image and likeness. Giving national TV a reason to resurrect Ronell to Donell Taylor’s twin telepathy and Mo Finley’s Kentucky-slaying jumper from 2004.
It all served to remind the rest of the college basketball nation that UAB has a proud history in the sport, and with Kennedy back at his alma mater determined to honor the Gene Bartow Standard, it would be wise to pay attention to the Blazers going forward.
Look at them now 29 wins later with a shot at No. 30. They didn’t make the NCAA Tournament, but their postseason performance and that of the upper crust of the conference has changed the narrative. FAU, with the best record in the country at 35-3, is in the Final Four. UAB, No. 10 in DI in scoring offense at 81.3 ppg, and North Texas, No. 1 in scoring defense at 55.7 ppg, have turned the NIT final into a conference game. Charlotte won the CBI.
C-USA is a ridiculous 17-1 in those three postseason events. Those teams will take some new and renewed prestige with them as they all move to the American Athletic Conference next season.
As for this season, the NCAA Tournament selection committee should’ve looked closer.at a UAB team that dominated South Carolina, which took Alabama to overtime, and handled Georgia, which beat Auburn and Kentucky. No one should’ve been surprised when the Blazers won their NIT quarterfinal at Vanderbilt, completing a 3-0 sweep of the SEC.
The committee should’ve considered Walker’s midseason foot injury more seriously as a mitigating factor. UAB lost the Western Kentucky game, in which he got hurt and was hobbled late, by two points, then dropped two more games in his absence. Before the injury, he was battling Detroit Mercy’s Antoine Davis, son of former UAB coach Mike Davis, for the national scoring lead.
Walker’s jumper has been off during this NIT run, but he’s contributed in other ways and still stands No. 5 in the country at 22.3 points a game. He’s also set the school record for points in a season. Expect him to do something special tonight in the final game of his memorable two-year UAB career.
But this is not and never was a one-man show. “Dudes” is the latest buzzword in college basketball, and this is a roster full of them. In Tuesday’s thrilling 88-86 overtime win over Utah Valley, Ty Brewer set the school’s NIT record with 30 points while adding 12 rebounds and five steals. He also hit the go-ahead jumper in the last minute of overtime. Eric Gaines ran the show in OT, scoring seven massive points.
There were so many critical contributions from so many others. If you watched this team for the first time in that game, you might wonder what the Blazers are doing in this tournament and why they’re not in the other one. Here’s what they’re doing. They’re winning games. They’re making believers. They’re continuing the revival that began when Kennedy came home.
There is no way to know for sure, but if you’ve been paying attention all along and you know ball, you gotta believe this team could’ve done something a lot like this in that other tournament. A lot like FAU, a team UAB beat once and had on the ropes in their other regular-season meeting.
Of course, everyone would rather play in the NCAA Tournament than the NIT, but given the choice, being a champion sounds a lot more impressive than being a participant. At the end of the night, UAB could be the champion of a national postseason basketball tournament, breaking new ground in this state. Unless you advance to the Sweet 16, Elite Eight or Final Four of the Big Dance, it’s hard to beat that.
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