There is much rejoicing today in college towns across America that feature mediocre college basketball.
Haven’t you heard? There will be not only three men’s postseason basketball tournaments this March, but a fourth postseason basketball tournament has been created to give 16 more teams a chance to put in their 2009-10 media guide that indeed, they played in the postseason.
So we can’t get a football playoff, but new basketball tournaments pop up every year? Now they’re just taunting us.
Let’s take a moment to collectively scream like Dick Vitale.
America, are you really ready to watch 129 teams play postseason basketball? Let’s rephrase that: America, do you actually want to watch nearly a third of Division I college basketball teams (there are 343) play in the postseason?
There are some teams out there that truly don’t belong in a postseason tournament. Some might even agree and defer to their local high school team. Most of the fans from those seasons have already sat through an entire season politely enough. Why make them suffer more?
This is all happening because last season the College Basketball Invitational debuted. They invited 16 teams, as they will again this year. It begins March 17, and its best-out-of-three championship series could last until April 3.
Tulsa won last year. If you didn’t know that before reading this, this is the one thing you have learned today.
The fourth – the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament – has emerged. It, too, will select 16 teams and will last from March 17-31.
Didn’t know that? Neither did the CBI.
“We’re kind of like, ‘Oh really?’” said Dan Loney, a media contact for the Gazelle Group, which puts on other college basketball tournaments around the nation during the preseason.
Us too, Dan.
Sure, there are a handful of teams with legitimate gripes about being left out of the NCAA Tournament, which invites 65 teams to its bracket and crowns the national champion of college basketball at its finale.
But those teams that get left out go to the 32-team National Invitational Tournament. That’s it. That’s the way it should be. Two tournaments is enough. Three was OK. The CollegeInsider tournament can’t even compete with the other three in the best abbreviation category. For the record, we’ll go with CI.comPT. Also, there’s an issue, it seems, with who gets to choose which teams. The CI.comPT says it gets to choose after the NIT and NCAA get their picks, while Loney said, “I don’t think there’s going to be a pecking order.”
He also said he had serious doubts both tournaments would choose one or more of the same teams.
I’m not sure … North Dakota State will be hard to pass on.
But really, for all our sakes, stop the four tournament Madness. Otherwise you’ll be inviting teams that don’t belong to be on the floor come March. According to the current NCAA Ratings Percentage Index, which combines several factors and is a major component for the NCAA Tournament selection committee, those teams on the “bubble” for the CI.comPT include Portland (13-7), Texas A&M Corpus-Christi (11-9), Iowa State (12-7) and Akron (10-8). North Dakota State is No. 117 and Oregon State is somehow No. 155.
So, any chance winless-in-the-Pac-10 Oregon – RPI ranking No. 119 – gets an invite to the CBI this March, Dan?
“Well you know there’s no rule that you have to be over .500 to get into the tournament,” Loney said, “but no, it would certainly help.”
There’s always next year.
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New basketball tournament celebrates mediocrity
Daily Emerald
January 27, 2009
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