Give Us Your Poor, Your Tired, Your Huddled Masses
Wednesday’s loss at Indiana left many Buckeye fans dreading an invitation to that other tournament. You know, the one that used to be prestigious but now takes the 32-best teams not quite good enough for the NCAA tournament. If you’re counting at home, that would be the 66th-97th finest teams in America.
But what about those poor institutions that are not even deemed worthy enough to play in the NIT? The College Basketball Invitational has them covered.
The new post-season tournament from the Gazelle Group, a New Jersey sports-marketing firm, hopes to bracket-up the next 16-best college basketball teams in America. We’re talking 98-113 range at this point in time.
The Gazelle Group has some experience in this realm, having put on the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer and the CBI does have one interesting wrinkle: the championship will be a best-of-three home-away-home series.
No fluke victories in this one. You gotta earn it on the court, baby.
7 Responses
Interesting investment. I can’t imagine this will succeed, but with the inclusion of a best of three series we should definitively know who the 98th best team in the country is.
Kyle - February 28th, 2008 at 1:22 pm - #
The uninspired way we have been playing, we are one and done no matter what tournament we go to.
Kelly - February 28th, 2008 at 1:30 pm - #
How could you pass up an intense 3 game series of Rider vs. Brown or Richmond vs. American or even worse yet, Minnesota vs. Boston College?
http://www.kenpom.com/rpi.php
Corey - February 28th, 2008 at 1:50 pm - #
This is a great idea - really!
I’ve always imagined a reverse tournamen with all teams not making it into the NCAA tourney to find out which was the WORST team in the nation. Imagine if you only advanced if you LOST!
I know there would have to be some counterproductive engineerinng here as the worse you were, the more money you might recoup from the tourney and teams actually trying to lose. But imagine Rider vs Brown on the sunday before the NCAA chanpionship to find out which team was the worst in the country.
Please, gawd, let it be an SEC team.
Arkansas Buckeye - February 28th, 2008 at 1:57 pm - #
The way this season’s going, we may well end up playing Florida in a three-game series. They’re on losing streak, we’re on a losing streak.
Let’s get it on!
Joe Fox - February 28th, 2008 at 2:44 pm - #
Well, not sure if you guys know this or not, but it wouldn’t be the next 16 teams. The new CBI is actually going to compete against the NIT to get some of their teams. So, it should be really competitive. It may not be NCAA Tourney exciting, but it won’t be the red-headed stepchild either… Keep an eye out for some of the biggest name teams in the country having mediocre years to take part.
Thomas - February 29th, 2008 at 2:36 pm - #
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