Should Michigan be in the NIT?
Hello Board!
I know this has been discussed a little bit already, and I know we finished with a losing record, but I feel Michigan is better than most teams in the NIT. Ken Pomeroy agrees with me, as he had Michigan at #60 in his most recent ratings (Above MANY teams in the NIT). Pomeroy's ratings of other teams in the NIT field:
(8) Stony Brook - #191
(4) Kent State - #83
(5) Tulsa - #79
(6) Illinois State - #90
(2) Cincinnati - #69
(7) Weber State - #109
(8) Jacksonville - #153
(4) Seton Hall - #62
(5) Texas Tech - #80
(6) St. John's - #65
(7) Troy State - #174
(8) Quinnipiac - #194
(5) Northeastern - #76
(3) Wichita State - #70
(6) Nevada - #96
(2) Rhode Island - #73
(7) Northwestern - #77
(8) Jackson State - #288(!!!)
(5) William & Mary - #113
(3) South Florida - #78
(2) UAB - #67
(7) Coastal Carolina - #147
Now I'm aware that KenPom's ratings are not the end-all-be-all of ranking a college basketball team, but it does give a good indication of the the overall quality of a team. It appears that the NIT selection committee puts alot of emphasis on candidates' win/loss records as opposed to quality wins. Anyways, I just thought I would point out that one can reasonably argue that U-M is better than over half the teams in the NIT.
Let me put it this way: If you were Illinois, would you rather play Michigan or Stony Brook? Exactly.
Thoughts?
assuming Michigan wants to play in the NIT. I can't think of a reason why they would not want to play but nevertheless Belein did say we weren't interested in the CBI. Granted the NIT isn't quite as useless as the CBI but it's getting close. I doubt the university could make money on the invite which may be a factor as well.
Michigan wants to be in the NIT.
does the NIT want michigan?!?! no.
I would think that would be fairly obvious, you know, with them not inviting us and all.
Many of those teams with lower ratings are there because if you win the regular season in your conference, you're guaranteed post season play. Since there's 28ish(?) conferences that feed into post season play, many teams MUST also win their conference tournament or they don't get in the big tournament. If not, they get the NIT.
For instance, Jacksonville was guaranteed postseason play in the Atlantic Sun as the top seed, but ETSU won that conference tournament. ETSU goes to the big dance, and Jacksonville gets the NIT as consolation.
So basically, their KenPom rating is erroneous because they get in because of the auto bid, not by at-large selection.
I didn't know a team could qualify for automatic post-season play without getting into the Dance.
that was put into place within the last year or two.
You can't make the NIT when you finish below .500
I've heard that this is not true, but I can't find anywhere to confirm it.
This article mentions that it's no longer the case...
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-basketball/choosing-to-not-play-in-th…
But they didn't really cite anything official. I dug around the NIT site a bit. The selection procedure makes no mention of it (so I guess one might interpret that .500 is not required).
Still... every team in the NIT finished abouve .500. So I guess while it's not a requirement, the likelihood that a sub-.500 team gets in over a .500+ team is pretty slim.
You don't need to be at .500 or above to qualify, it just doesn't typically happen (if ever.)
I was sorely mistaken.
I figure if Pomeroy's rankings decided it, we'd be dancing at under .500...
The NIT has qualification rules, those can't be ignored.
Seriously... No.
I realize having a below .500 record no longer precludes participation in the NIT...however it's touch to justify taking a team with a losing record when there are teams out there with above .500 records.
To answer your question though...Michigan is better than a lot of those teams. I agree with you.
To take it a step further...is Michigan better than any of these teams?
Lehigh, New Mexico St., Houston, etc.
Unfortunately these post-season tournaments don't always take the best 65 (or 32) available. Just how it works.
...is that you can win 20 games with a wimpy schedule and get to the big dance. Michigan's strength of schedule played a major role in their losing record. I think they deserve an NIT birth, especially since it took a once-in-a-decade lucky shot for tOSU to beat us at the buzzer.
It won't matter if there is a 96 team NCAA. It's likely Michigan would be playing a play-in game on Tuesday against the sixth place team from the MAC.
Ugh.
They Coulda
If they would have hit a few more 3's they Woulda.
they should be in the ncaa tourny; just couldn't win the close games. wins against msu, wisky and the recent osu game would have got us in.
March 16th, 2010 at 10:31 AM ^
please, god, stop.