Bruce Pearl did a bad job

And other thoughts on every Friday tournament game

TFW you did a bad job coaching your team

True story: We had a big intro column written about the SEC and Greg Sankey, but you know what? Enough. I’m tired of talking about that dude. He doesn’t get it. The level of consensus on this topic has never been higher. The tournament continues to be amazing regardless of, and practically in spite of, his desire to ruin it.

Never has a dude who tried to destroy so many people’s fun also been told so unanimously, directly and indirectly, to eff off. It’s a triumph of the human spirit.

Anyway, it’s like 2:30 am ET as of writing, let’s just get straight into the thoughts on every Friday game, in temporal order, including Auburn’s loss to Yale, which Sankey undoubtedly thought was a fault of the format and will be seeking to remedy asap.

No. 9 Northwestern 77, No. 8 Florida Atlantic 65 (OT)

The big, overriding question about this game, the one I spent all day asking myself every time I saw the highlight again on Twitter, was: What was Johnell Davis doing? It was almost unthinkable, the way he handled the final possession of regulation, when Florida Atlantic, tied with Northwestern 58-58, had nearly 10 seconds to get up the floor and get a good look. Davis is a brilliantly smooth offensive player, and an intelligent one; few guys read defenses and attack angles quite so well. And so with the ball in his hands on the wing, you thought Davis would at least get at the defense, get something approaching a good look.