Are You NIT Or CBI??

March 18th, 2008

Are You NIT OR CBI??
.....or if neither, SOL?? Anyway, for years I have called the NIT the "Not Invited Tournament", of course meaning Not Invited (to the NCAA) Tournament. Now the braintrust of all things college basketball has created something called the College Basketball Invitational, or as I am now going to call: "Cannot Be Invited Tournament" If you're not invited to the NCAA or the NIT, is it really worth being invited to anything else? Apparently so; therefore, you cannot be invited to either.'s amazing the NIT was once, back in dark ages (DA, or, the age before television) THE National Championship. Some teams, back in the day, even tried playing both. See the following for more information:

Now the common argument these days is that the NCAA tournament still does not invite enough teams. I strongly disagree, in fact I would even favor a decrease. If Arizona, and Kentucky is any proof, do teams with 12-13 loses, even with the toughest schedules, truly belong among the elite? This is very similar to what's happening with NCAA Football in the bowl system. Too many teams not only play in these games, but are getting rewarded for mediocrity. I don't think we should go back to the dark ages and have conference winners only, but I think expanding to more teams dilutes an already (possibly) bloated , albeit lucrative, product.

So what does this have to do with NIT and CBI (or even PTI, CSI, CHiPs....)? If Virginia or Richmond is in the CBI, then we have ourselves a glorified bowl system in college basketball. Is this a good thing? In the name of $, the NCAA will probably say yes. I say stop the insanity