As all you Oregon men’s basketball junkies know, the Ducks are still eligible for the postseason with a possible berth in the National Invitational Tournament.
My fellow colleague wrote Thursday that the team deserves a shot at the NIT because the team persevered through some adversity (i.e. the Ian Crosswhite situation), leaned on underclassmen for their production and hung around in some tough games.
I have to disagree. The team doesn’t deserve a berth in the NIT.
While Oregon did deal with all those issues and had the chance to win some pivotal games, the key factor is that the Ducks didn’t win those games. They couldn’t even make the Pacific-10 Tournament and finished in a very disappointing ninth place in the conference.
The Ducks didn’t earn a postseason.
It’s not that they didn’t work hard or give the effort, they just couldn’t figure out how to win the close games during the conference season. It would have taken just one free throw against Washington.
The Ducks lost late leads to UCLA, Arizona State and Stanford this season and were within striking distance in games against Arizona and Oregon State.
Arguably the team’s best win of the season came at McArthur Court against a New Mexico team that finished 23-6 on the season, but that was in Oregon’s second game of the season.
Another argument I hear about why Oregon should get an NIT bid is that Eugene draws well for the NIT and that the NIT can bring in a big profit from having Oregon host a game at historic Mac Court.
Am I the only one that is troubled by
this rationale?
And why is there no talk (other than my colleague’s) about the team actually deserving a bid?
Because they don’t.
Yes, the excuse can be made that the Ducks are young and inexperienced, but it doesn’t give them a free pass into the tournament.
The NIT shouldn’t water down its tournament with teams that barely eclipsed the .500 mark and finished at the bottom of their conference.
There is also a lesson these young players need to learn. How much does a team really take away from a season when they perform below expectations and still get an NIT berth because of where they play, not for what they did on the court?
This young Duck squad should just pack up its lockers and have Ernie Kent give the team a nice inspirational speech about learning from this year’s experiences and continuing to work hard on its game.
This team knows it is talented enough to at least be in the NIT tournament, and Oregon could probably make a serious run if it does get in.
But if that opportunity does come, the Ducks should thank their loyal fan base, because the fans will have earned the bid, not the team.

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