NIT-picking: Why the NIT is underrated |
| Posted by Administrator on Apr 01 2009 |
Photo by Garrett Ritonya
Creighton guard P'Allen Stinnet shoots a free throw as the CU students look on in anticipation. Stinnett finished the game with 15 points.
By Garrett Ritonya
Antelope Staff
Patty Mills versus Stephen Curry. Jodie Meeks versus Luke Harangody. The University of Kentucky traveling to a Midwestern city that it will never go to again. What do all of these have in common?
They are all match-ups and scenarios provided by the yearly National Invitational Tournament, or NIT, put on by the NCAA for teams that weren't quite right for the "Big Dance." While the teams themselves are happy to be playing still, the NIT is a kind of Island of Misfit College Basketball teams whose dreams were crushed by the NCAA Selection Committee.
College basketball pundits and fans alike look at the tournament teams as undervalued and underappreciated.
Take one look at ESPN's Web site, and tell me how long it takes you to find out any news about the NIT or even a schedule of games. It took me a few minutes, and that's only because I have navigated the site a few thousand times.
But the fact of the matter is this, take a look at some of the match-ups provided by the NIT, and you can almost say that those games are better than the ones given to us by the NCAA Tournament.
Instead of watching Louisville play a mediocre Morehead State squad, you have games such as Georgetown versus Baylor and Davidson versus Saint Mary's. Every single NIT game pits together two teams who were worthy of making the tournament but fell one win short.
What does that leave the NIT with: A field worthy of national recognition. The NCAA Tournament hands out over 30 automatic bids into its 65-team field every year.
Half of which shouldn't be in the tournament to begin with. Just look at the field present at the NIT this season: Notre Dame, Kentucky, Creighton, Saint Mary's, Baylor, Penn State. All of these schools have reached the 20-win mark and have beaten key teams playing in this year's tournament.
One scenario that makes the NIT so great is the fact that games are hosted at home for schools, instead of at regional playing sites. Sure, you want that neutral court to level the playing field, but in a way it's not that neutral at all.
Take for example the Creighton-Kentucky game last week. Kentucky missed going to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 17 years and featured the SEC Player of the Year, Jodie Meeks.
Now the draw of the tournament had Kentucky traveling to Omaha to play Creighton, a team it hasn't faced since 1948. Creighton has never been able to attract a power conference team to the Qwest Center, just because they are a mid-major and those power schools don't want to lose on the road.
I had the opportunity to go to this game, and needless to say, the atmosphere was electric. The fans were cheering as if it were the NCAA Championship game from the first bucket to the last. Fans even braved the tornado warning at the start of the game to see the 2nd round NIT game.
But these are the stories that go unheard and get buried behind the talk of the NCAA Tournament. When you have a game that features the two best point guards in the nation in Saint Mary's Patty Mills and Davidson's Stephen Curry and it gets bumped for some lousy first round NCAA Tournament game, something is wrong.
The fact of the matter is the NCAA Tournament doesn't usually get good until the Elite 8 or so, while the NIT provides good game after good game. I would much rather watch these NIT games than March Madness games, just because of the level of competition in these contests.
It is clear the NIT doesn't get the credit it deserves, but I blame the media. On a day when there are eight solid first round games, ESPN only shows two of them and then spends five minutes of their 60-minute broadcast discussing the games. It's hard to sell a tournament no one knows about, and that is why the NIT has a problem gaining support from fans.
The NIT deserves national recognition for putting together a stacked field with some of college basketball's very best. But until the media begins covering it the way it should be, it will remain another in-the-dark tournament and another way for the NCAA to make money.
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