Second thoughts

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Everyone doesn’t get to Dance

For 68 college basketball teams, Sunday was an exciting day.

Those teams are heading to the NCAA Tournament. Coaches started working on the scouting report for their opening opponent. Fans, who can get tickets, started making travel arrangements.

Others will stay glued to their television or computer to watch their favorite team.

However, for handful of teams that didn’t see their name come up on the TV, Sunday was a depressing day. Instead of hitting the road and extending their season in the NCAA Tournament, they are relegated to the NIT, which some people knock as the Not Important Tournament or Not Invited Tournament.

While it’s tempting to blame the NCAA Selection Committee, coaches of those teams know they only have themselves to blame.

Win a few more games and they’re in the NCAA Tournament.

Among the snubbed:

Green Bay finished 24-6, had an RPI ranking of 57 , won the Horizon League, defeated NCAA-bound teams Tulsa, East No. 1 seed Virginia and Milwaukee, which won the Horizon League’s automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.

However, a 73-66 loss to Milwaukee in the conference final sent the Phoenix to the NIT, where they play Belmont tonight.

SMU went 23-9, swept Connecticut, split with Memphis and Cincinnati, but a quarterfinal loss to Houston in the American Athletic Conference Tournament kept the Mustangs out of the tournament.

SMU Coach Larry Brown said, “I feel bad for our team and you fans. I feel like we let you down.

“We could have beaten Louisville at home. … We didn’t play our best game at Memphis,” Brown added. “We almost beat Virginia. We had possession down one. But we didn’t beat Houston.

I kind of thought this could possibly happen.”

California went 19-13, defeated Pacific-12 regular-season champion Arizona, and NCAA Tournament-bound Arizona, Stanford, Oregon and Colorado.

But outside the conference, the Bears failed to help themselves by losing to Syracuse, Dayton and Creighton. Losing to UC-Santa Barbara and Southern Cal, which finished last in the Pac-12, didn’t help.

“I think we can play and compete with anybody,” Green Bay Coach Brian Wardle told the Appleton (Wis.) Post Crescent.

“That’s all I know. We can control what we can control. Obviously, we would have loved to have one more win under our belts, no matter what win it was. It looked like one win could have really helped us.”Fun facts

A few interesting facts about teams in this year’s NCAA Tournament:

Coastal Carolina’s team mascot, the Chanticleer, is taken from Chaucer’s “Cantebury Tables.”

Virginia Commonwealth Coach Shaka Smart is named after the famous Zulu warrior.

The downtown location of Louisville’s arena, the KFC Yum!

Center, was decided in a 16-1 vote by a task force with the lone dissenting vote coming from Papa John’s founder John Schnatter.

Tulsa chose the nickname Golden Hurricane because Golden Tornadoes was taken by somebody else.

Manhattan is actually located in the Bronx.

Wichita State’s mascot WuShock predates the Wu-Tang Clan by 44 years.

Michigan doesn’t have a mascot because it said it would be “undignified.”

Kansas’ chant, “Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk,” originated with the school’s Science Club in 1886.

Saint Louis’ mascot the Billiken, according to the school is an “elf-like creature with pixie ears, a mischievous smile and tuft of hair on his pointed head.”Quote of the day “I think our league is a lot better than what it gets credit for. I really, really do.” Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson

Sports, Pages 18 on 03/18/2014