NIT Brackets: Louisville Players Voted to Turn Down Invite, School Accepts Anyway; Nebraska Hosed
Didn't see any news on the board about the losers' post-season tournament, but here's some NIT intrigue to distract us for a few minutes before Thursday rolls around:
- Here are the brackets. Penn State and Nebraska are the only B1G teams to make the Little Dance:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/nit-2018-bracket-sche…
- Poor, damn Nebraska. They finish fourth in the Big Ten, they get a double bye in the Big Ten tourney, they think they're on the bubble for making the NCAAs, and then ... they're a 5 seed and have to go on the road in the first round of the NIT. Poor, damn Nebraska. If you check out some Nebraska blogs, they're pissed:
https://www.offtackleempire.com/2018/3/11/17108038/nit-bracket-what-the…
- The Louisville Cardinals, distraught over not making the Big Dance, took a vote among the players, and the players voted not to play in the NIT. The Lousville administration said tough sheet, and accepted the invitation anyway. Witness the implosion:
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/college/louisville/2018/03…
- As usual, the NIT will be experimenting with all sorts of wacky things, including playing with four 10-minute quarters instead of two 20-minute halves. I'm old enough to remember when Michigan played in the 1984 NIT, and the big innovation back then was to use a red-white-and-blue basketball.
Wow, no Maryland either. People really disliked the B1G this year.
The optics would be off because it's Louisville but I would like to see the players simply refuse to take the court. Don't refuse to travel -- make Louisville spend the money on airfare, bus rides, hotel rooms, meals, etc. But when it's tipoff time just leave your warmups on and say "we already voted on this."
This wouldn't work for the first or second game since they are at home. But maybe if they make it to NYC.
Also this is assuming the report is accurate that the players voted to decline the NIT invitation.
While I agree that there are more bowls than need be, which bowls has Michigan in particular gone to that "disgraced the school"? The Gator Bowl? Outback? Those are at least halfway decent vacation spots.
This totally depends on the circumstances of the NIT bid.
If you go into the season expecting to compete for championships and to certainly make the NCAA tournament, but struggle and lose some games and wind up the NIT, then yeah--it's disappointing and often you'd rather not even be there at all. That's when people say stuff like "I'd rather lose in the first round of the NCAA tournament than win the NIT."
But if you have a mediocre team and are struggling just to go .500 in your conference and hopefully make the post-season, then the NIT can be a lot of fun. I remember when Amaker's team went to the NIT back in 2004. The first two or three rounds were played at Crisler and the tickets were general admission. It was a good time.
I'm sure there are lots of teams in this year's NIT who feel like they either got jobbed out of an NCAA bid (such as Nebraska), or just had very disappointing seasons they'd just as soon were overwith (Louisville). But surely there are some other teams in the NIT field who were never really in contention for anything, aren't that bummed about missing the NCAAs, and can just make the most of the NIT experience.
Refuse to play at all.They have a decent chance of getting public opinion on their side and maybe it could lead to players having more of a say about things that are important to them.
Playing in the tournament and then sitting out in NYC garbles their message, while making them look petty if the point was to make Louisville waste money or to get a free trip. It's affecting teams that wanted to be there too. It gets more publicity, but a lot of it will be bad. It could end up being about their behavior, not their complaint.
In the meantime, Louisville is making money on those home games .And they will probably lose one of them, forfeiting the chance to make a statement.
Those are good points.
March 13th, 2018 at 12:42 PM ^
I'd like to see the players pull something like that, and then get kicked off the team. Start with a whole new roster next year. Get brid of entitled punks.
If the players want to forefeit, they should forefit. Forcing the school and fans to spend a lot of time and money so they can forefeit is an idea only assholes would support.
I mean, Neb had a soft B10 schdule. 13-5 is great but PSU was the higher ranked KenPom team as I recall.
I really hope Nebraska and Penn State go a long way in the NIT so it helps to set things up for the BIG next year.
dont think it'll have any difference in how the B1G is viewed. No one cares enough about the NIT.
Yeah but that's really the only notable thing they did this year. 1 good win does not a tourney team maketh.
Arizona St. had four top 50 wins (vs. Nebraska's one) including two wins against 1 seeds away from home.
Thanks in large part to us playing our 4th game in 8 days and Nebraska having 5 days rest. Thanks, Delany.
Their schedule really was too weak to deserve an NCAA bid, though. A resume like that is not going to get a tourney invite unless your name is Izzo.
They got what they deserved. This was not the profile of a tournament team. Their win over us was the only noteworthy thing they did all season.
Very few things in life make me as happy as Husker fans mad.
Why? Nebraska and its fans never struck me as being particularly unlikeable or one of the programs that we all love to hate.
1997 called and it would like to speak to you.
I'm over that. Their program got lost in the woods after they fired Frank Solich just like ours did after Lloyd retired, and they still haven't found their way back. I've found that people who aren't fans of either team (or fans of a rival) don't particularly remember or care that 1997 was a split championship; all they remember is that Nebraska won a few championships in the 90's and that Michigan also won one with Charles Woodson. No one outside of Ann Arbor, Lincoln, East Lansing, or Columbus cares about the split title in 1997.
For example: I'll be you didn't know that out of USC's last 4 national championships, 3 of them were split (with Oklahoma in 1974, with Alabama in 1978, and with LSU in 2003). And I'll bet you don't particularly care, either.
That's why I look at Nebraska and Tom Osborne with disgust. I hated those cats way before 1997.
College football fans - no matter what team you support - are supposed to hold grudges against schools that "did them wrong" for 5,000,000 years. At minimum.
(that's a mix of sarcasm and truth)
You are right - most folk outside of AA, Lincoln, EL, Columbus and (this city must be added) Knoxville don't care about 1997 any longer. Shoot, they didn't care about 1997 in 1998.
Yeah, I get that. But the other thing is that I've found Husker fans to be among the classiest fans in college football (their delusion and ridiculous insistence that Nebraska was the superior team in 1997 notwithstanding). I went to Lincoln for the 2012 Nebraska game, and without exception, their fans were gracious and genuinely nice. Even the drunk ones were nice drunks. I've never been to another road venue where no one taunted us or talked shit. As douchebag fanbases go, you could do a lot worse than Nebraska.
You must be a millennial
LOL NO. I'm just not all that hung up on 1997, that's all.
I can completely understand louisville's point, why go to a tournament where they may not get their usual number of hookers and blow!!!!
The Cards were given a No. 2 seed in the NIT, meaning they were one of the top eight teams in the 32-squad field. They'll host a second-round NIT matchup at the Yum Center if they beat NKU, which won the regular-season Horizon League title.
Actually, if I am Louisville, I take the approach of getting myself all the way to the championship game and then failing to show up, just to really make a dig at the school. Either that, or wearing practice shirts that read "Team Butthurt".
....or here is another t-shirt they could wear
That's what I'm thinking. They're going to come out there with all the enthusiasm of a Brady Hoke Spring Game.
You're assuming they will practice hard during the week though.
I don't know why exactly, but I like the 20-minute halves for college basketball. I don't want the quarter thing to take root.
teams weren't allowed to turn down the NIT unless they had a good reason. E.g., a coach leaving (Georgia), or stadium renovations, et cetera.
"We don't want to" isn't really a "good reason."
Hopefully the NKU Norse make the trip south on I-71 and whoop up on the entitled Louisville players.