Villanova players sat out the NIT? Good for them.

I wasn’t at Tuesday’s NIT battle, Villanova at Liberty, but I was riveted to my couch for this must-see TV.

That’s all a lie — didn’t see a second of it. Checked the score at halftime. Saw the final score later. In my house, the fourth season of Fargo was on, two episodes for the night. (Season 2 is my personal favorite so far.)

Good for you Villanova faithful if you watched the action at Liberty. If they’re playing, you’re watching. Have to respect that, truly.

Where I have a problem with you is … if you’re ticked off that Justin Moore and especially Cam Whitmore didn’t play. Sorry, not at all with you.

Sometimes you have to apply the Ricky Watters rule to life — for who, for what? More to the point, you have to look at all the risk-reward scenarios for these ballplayers. We’ll get to that.

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The NIT, to me, is the Boca Raton Bowl of basketball … fine for mid-majors with something to prove. Not at all for disappointed big programs, who didn’t make the NCAA play-in game. Play a few games to get ready for next season? Please, it’s not the same squad. There’s little to no statistical carry-over. Next season will be its own entity.

What about the idea that you owe it to your teammates to ride out the season? To that, I’d say you’re rooting for a fantasy, a mirage, a world that no longer exists. Go ahead and root for the front of the jersey. But then don’t worry that it wasn’t a full squad, because you’re not rooting for the back of that jersey.

I don’t see anyone getting on Justin Moore. That would be flat moronic. Everybody saw what Moore lost in the last seconds of last season’s Elite Eight game, those images now part of Villanova history. The fact that Moore came back to play any games after Achilles surgery was impressive. To expect him to risk further injury would have been insane.

So here’s Whitmore. One and done, but not quite even one. Didn’t he owe it to everyone to finish things out? There’s some selfishness involved here, and it isn’t from Cam, who already sustained one time-missing injury this season, and made the trip to root on his teammates.

He’s projected as a sure first-round pick. Personally, I have questions about how exactly he translates to the next level, but that’s neither here nor there. He gets to prove himself and will get life-changing money to do it. If he’d quit in January, that’s on him. That would have shown he should have gone to Overtime Elite.

But the NIT isn’t even the Rose Bowl … which Penn State future first-rounder Joey Porter Jr. did not play in. This was the Boca Raton Bowl. The risk of serious injury might be small, but it’s real. For who, for what?

You don’t believe a hack sportswriter, fine, but Collin Gillespie is any Villanova fan’s definition of an ultimate gamer. His pinned Tweet still is, “very excited to say I am committing to Villanova University.” (Who cares about Twitter? Gillespie says more on Twitter these days than he ever did in post-game pressers.) … Tuesday, Gillespie weighed into the play-or-not debate.

His tweet: “Broke my leg going back to play in an open gym with them … if I could go back wouldn’t never done it because it meant nothing. I missed my first year of professional basketball.”

Let’s not forget that a Gillespie injury late in what had appeared to be his final season helped him decide for what turned out to be the Final Four year since he couldn’t work out for NBA teams in the spring.

The money you’re asking Whitmore to risk … The 10th pick in last year’s NBA draft was guaranteed over $8 million over two years. Let’s say Whitmore slides to 15: $6.35 million. Or he crushes the workouts and jumps up to fifth: $12.3 million.

Those numbers should help you understand that it wouldn’t have taken a Moore- or Gillespie-like injury to hurt Whitmore’s future. His weeks just ahead are worth millions to him, generations-changing money. But sure, let him risk it.

So why did Villanova accept the NIT bid? I’ll give everyone the benefit of the doubt that the bid was accepted with no ulterior motives, that nobody got a postseason bonus. But Kyle Neptune would rather be in the postseason than not in his first season, and if the players who played were all in, all good. Villanova doesn’t want to be so arrogant as to be above the NIT, fine. Caleb Daniels and Brandon Slater finish special careers. All good, even if it ended with an L at Liberty.

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Personally, I’d love to force teams to hold secret ballots on whether to play in these things, but college sports is not a democratic exercise.

What are the odds of NIT injury? I don’t know, but I watched it unfold with another team in another era, a star player on the ground.

Temple fans of a certain age remember it. The headline from my story on March 21, 2002: “Greer may be done as an Owl. The senior suffered a sprained ankle Tuesday. Chaney doesn’t want to risk further injury.”

I covered the game a couple of nights before in Louisville, Lynn Greer slipping on a wet floor near the end of the game. Awful scene. … After it turned out to be a high ankle sprain, John Chaney said the next day, “I would never forgive myself if I played that kid and something happened.”

Chaney was specifically referring to Greer’s professional future. Let’s all accept the fact that Cam Whitmore showed up at Villanova to enhance his professional future. If he comes back and gets his degree 20 years from now, fantastic. But the kind of money we’re talking about can pay for his grandchildren’s college education.

If none of that matters, if you still think big-time college sports, even at the dear old alma mater, is for “student-athletes,” then your delusions go way beyond one meaningless NIT game.

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