What a tournament this March has brought us! VCU in the Final Four? It's kind of nice to see CAA teams achieve so much success in the tournament; while I'm not sure William and Mary will ever make the tourney in my lifetime, at least everyone will know that we accomplished a 10-20 record against quality teams.
I have always considered the NIT a loser's bracket of sorts (though amazingly, I learned just this year that there are still two LOWER tournaments, the CBI and CIT), but that wasn't always the case. In fact, not many people know this, but the NIT is actually older than the NCAA Tournament, by one year. For many seasons, there wasn't a clear consensus about which champion was the actual national champion (sort of like the AP and the BCS in college football), and in at least two years, the NCAA champion lost their FIRST games in the NIT.
Alas, the NCAA would have the last laugh, by prohibiting the rejection of NCAA tournament bids by invited teams and sounding the death knell for the hapless NIT. The Metropolitan Basketball Writer's Association (which founded the NIT) settled an antitrust suit in 2005 against the NCAA which compelled the NCAA's purchase of the NIT rights for 10 years. So in a sense, the NIT is sort of an NCAA tournament too.
And William and Mary didn't make that one either.
2 comments:
but they did last year!
And then got bounced in the first round :(
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