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Dating back to 1938 it's the first tournament in college basketball. Every March its brackets drive serious college sports fans, journalists and athletes to near insanity. And every year it means about as much as winning a prize turkey the day after Thanksgiving. More leftovers? I'm talking about the National Invitation Tournament or the Not Invited Tournament as it is sometimes labeled. For those of you who don't know what the NIT is, its probably because you've either spent the last two weeks combing websites, listening to ESPN and probing anyone who will answer about their final four picks in the NCAA tournament. Or you don't watch college basketball. But if you do watch college basketball and still didn't know about the NIT you shouldn't feel less like a fan, your just a victim of the NCAA's utter destruction of oldest tournament in college basketball. But can you blame them? Why would you want to watch this?
After the NCAA selection committee makes its 65 selections for the Division I Men's tournament we all lose our senses for. The NIT invites 32 teams, who weren't qualified for whatever reasons, to play in its postseason tournament. Of course no one invited rejects an invitation to the NIT because your happy for your consolation prize but what if those last few teams that got selected for the NCAA tournament held out to play in the NIT. The NCAA is the clear cut better tournament, only for the best of the best. Anyone who backed out of it would have to be front runners to win the NIT right? It would be like the last kid picked in dodge ball quitting so he could wipe out all the rejects in tetherball.
But that would never happen. You can ask any college basketball player in the country. It is better to be the very last seed in the NCAA tournament than the first seed in the NIT because not only don't average people know about the NIT they don't care.
When you hear "who do you have winning your bracket" do you ever hear "which bracket"? No because the NIT is for shits and giggles, who cares who wins.
In defense of the NIT it does allow for some teams that should have made the NCAA tournament but didn't because the selection committee cant possibly please everybody an opportunity to play and earn some vindication. And for those seniors hoping to go into the NBA a last opportunity to showcase their talent. But must it be played at the same time as the NCAA tournament. People would watch the NIT if was on after the NCAA tournament but it isn't. And it should be. It's not like the winner is champion of anything besides a trophy that says you'll never be as good as those other 65 teams in the other tournament. Push it back a few weeks and they will have more viewers, bigger crowds and earn more respect by not competing with the championship tourny.
But until that day the general public will be satisfied with ignoring all together...at least until next year when it takes up more valuable tv time.
This video of someone going through their NIT picks for the 2009 bracket shows just how meaningless it is. |
