No Florida, michigan, Minnesota or Memphis. Also no Big East teams. Lots of solid programs missed out this year.
Arizona St. is our only 2014-15 opponent to be picked.
Hard to make the NIT now, since automatic bids go to conference winners who don't make the ncaa tourament.
Wardle and UWGB are in, 5th seed against Illinois St.- good luck to them, hope they make a run.
I keep seeing articles about teams turning down the CBI invitations.
I know it's thought of as degrading to some of these programs, but I have never agreed with that.
There is this famous article from last year:
http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24488698/hoosiers-ad-were-indiana-we-dont-play-in-the-cbi
Other schools are saying the same thing, but it's just funny.
Only one "major school" accepted a CBI invite - Colorado.
http://www.gazellegroup.com/events/cbi/news/2015/cbi_150315_announce.htm
That's not exactly the field that I would want to be a part of.
I'm all for letting schools that never sniff the postseason get a chance to compete over large schools / usual powers who had crummy seasons and whose fans likely want the season to end, but looking at it from the perspective of the organizer trying to make the most money, I wonder if they should revisit their "pay to play" model? Could they get more from CBS Sports, or an offer from another network if they had a slate that would be more enticing and didn't insult the schools by making them pay for a chance to be crowned team #101? Or would it be too "big name/money" favoring for the NCAA to allow the Gazelle Group to snub the small schools that had nice seasons and replace with Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Memphis, Clemson, Florida State, Yale, UNLV, Utah State, Cal, Tennessee, and a few others? I'd think not paying and being in a field with the names mentioned would be enough to get most of them to play.
Schools hafta pay to play in da CBI "tournament." Definitely a loss leader, so why bother?
If you have a young big conference team that hasn't experienced success in a while or a low major who rarely gets any post-conference tournament games, there may be value in the CBI. I'm thinking big conference schools like Northwestern who could use a shot at any kind of championship or a school like Yale who has their best team in a while and probably deserved the NIT but weren't invited.
Missouri Valley Conferencne teams Loyola of Chicago and Evansville won the CBI and CIT titles.
Quote from: bilsu on April 04, 2015, 06:30:47 PM
Missouri Valley Conferencne teams Loyola of Chicage and Evansville won the CBI and CIT titles.
HANG A BANNER!
Quote from: 77ncaachamps on April 04, 2015, 07:13:15 PM
HANG A BANNER!
Nice job by Porter Moser and the Ramblers. It's only the CBI but if you're gonna play in it you might as well win it.
The nice thing about these two tournaments is that most people will not know if you lose.
I watch both. Glad CBSSN did the games. Congrats.