NIT still ducking questions about basketball snub

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

I saw this late last week and did not get a chance to share.  I thought it interesting because aren't regular season champs automatically in the NIT?  Yale is still pissed as they had their best season, ever, were Ivy league regular season co-champs that included wins over UConn & Harvard and then lost a one game playoff to Harvard for an NCAA bid.  Their RPI was also 63.

http://www.nhregister.com/sports/20150409/nit-still-ducking-questions-about-yale-mens-basketball-snub

NIT still ducking questions about Yale men’s basketball snub

By Chris Hunn, New Haven Register
Posted: 04/09/15, 6:25 PM EDT | Updated: 4 days ago   

This past season was a memorable year for the Yale men’s basketball team.

The Bulldogs (22-10, 11-3 Ivy League) finished with the program’s most wins since 1948-49 and clinched a share of the Ivy title for the first time since 2002. Yale racked up postseason awards, with James Jones earning the Ivy’s coach of the year honor and forward Justin Sears being named conference player of the year. Sears was also an honorable mention on The Associated Press All-America Team.

But there was a bitter ending to the historic season.

After a pair of heartbreaking losses left Yale still searching for its first NCAA tournament berth in 53 years, the Bulldogs were snubbed from the 32-team National Invitation Tournament.

“They don’t know how good we are,” Jones said last month after finding out Yale didn’t get into the tournament. “We had a great year, one of the best Yale’s ever had. If we can’t get in this year, I don’t know how we get in. It’s disheartening.”

So why didn’t the Bulldogs receive an invitation? There is no clear answer.

Jones said the NIT was not able to give him an explanation and directed the Register to the Ivy League office.

Ivy League associate executive director for communications Scottie Rodgers offered this statement: “Our office remains very disappointed that Yale was not selected for the NIT field. We will be following up with the NCAA staff/NIT committee in the offseason in a more formal way to engage in deeper discussions on this matter. Hopefully we can work collaboratively to reach a change in this interpretation that gives the Ivy League appropriate access to the NIT when we have a co-champion situation.”

Members of the NIT committee did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Yale knocked off defending national champion UConn, Harvard and held its own in a double-overtime loss to Vanderbilt this season. Harvard earned the Ivy’s automatic NCAA berth, while UConn and Vanderbilt each played in the NIT. Furthermore, Yale had just one double-digit loss and the Bulldogs had an impressive 11 road victories to finish No. 63 in the RPI rankings.

Yale certainly suffered a few losses that didn’t help its chances, including defeats at the hands of Columbia, Dartmouth, NJIT and Quinnipiac.

ESPN college basketball analyst Andy Katz called Yale being left out “the one major snub in the NIT.”

About the Author
Chris Hunn
Follow Chris on Twitter: @Chris_Hunn.

[GGGG]

Do they really owe Yale an explanation?

[CTWarrior]

Do they really owe Yale an explanation?

I don't see why they do, but it certainly seems wrong that Yale was excluded.  Beat Dartmouth and its not an issue, though, as they'd have made the big tournament.

[ChuckyChip]

Do they really owe Yale an explanation?

I thought the rule was that all regular season conference champs automatically qualified for the NIT.  They were "co-champions" so that would be why they feel they deserved an invite.

[bradley center bat]

Harvard won the tie breaker, so Yale finished 2nd= no automatic NIT birth.

[GooooMarquette]

I'd think the NIT would want to invite a team that actually wanted to be there.  Or maybe not....

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

I thought the rule was that all regular season conference champs automatically qualified for the NIT.  They were "co-champions" so that would be why they feel they deserved an invite.

This was pretty much why I shared this story.

[Benny B]

Harvard won the tie breaker, so Yale finished 2nd= no automatic NIT birth.

It doesn't take an Ivy League degree to see how the tiebreaker could essentially be tantamount to a conference tournament... the whole point of the rule in the NIT is so mid and low major conferences could get two teams into the post season when they crown a different regular season and tournament champion, i.e. when a conference champion doesn't get an auto-bid to the NCAA.  Yale is the conference champion who didn't get the auto-bid.  The fact that they were co-champions should be irrelevant because the co-champion got the auto-bid.

One could imagine how outraged we would have been if co-Big East Champion Marquette (who didn't win the autobid) was somehow snubbed from the NCAA, but imagine the salt in the wound of being snubbed from the NIT too. {Disclaimer - MU is not a low or mid major nor was the Big East intended to be a beneficiary of this rule}

The lack of a response is basically an admission by the NCAA that the NIT committee screwed up.  Yale should have been included... it was a major, glaring error/oversight on their part, and just like the NCAA, they screwed the pooch and immediately went into hiding.

[GGGG]

It doesn't take an Ivy League degree to see how the tiebreaker could essentially be tantamount to a conference tournament... the whole point of the rule in the NIT is so mid and low major conferences could get two teams into the post season when they crown a different regular season and tournament champion, i.e. when a conference champion doesn't get an auto-bid to the NCAA.  Yale is the conference champion who didn't get the auto-bid.  The fact that they were co-champions should be irrelevant because the co-champion got the auto-bid.

One could imagine how outraged we would have been if co-Big East Champion Marquette (who didn't win the autobid) was somehow snubbed from the NCAA, but imagine the salt in the wound of being snubbed from the NIT too.

The lack of a response is basically an admission by the NCAA that the NIT committee screwed up.  Yale should have been included... it was a major, glaring error/oversight on their part, and just like the NCAA, they screwed the pooch and immediately went into hiding.

The Ivy League is the one to blame here.  They take great pride in not having a conference tournament.  They went to great lengths to say that the Harvard / Yale game was not a tournament, but a regular season tie-breaker.

The NIT did nothing really wrong here, and no one outside the Yale community really cares anyway.

[Benny B]

The Ivy League is the one to blame here.  They take great pride in not having a conference tournament.  They went to great lengths to say that the Harvard / Yale game was not a tournament, but a regular season tie-breaker.

The NIT did nothing really wrong here, and no one outside the Yale community really cares anyway.

I will certainly concede the latter, which, I suppose, essentially qualifies the former.

But one has to agree that it's extremely difficult to decide who one would rather see wallow, the Ivy League or the NCAA.