If you watched college basketball last night, you likely had the unfortunate event of seeing Virginia have one of the worst offensive performances since the sport stopped using peach baskets. They lost to Colorado State 67-42 in a game that was not a close as the score might indicate. And perhaps the only people more frustrated than Virginia fans are anyone at Oklahoma, Seton Hall, and Indiana State. Those schools were likely the first three not picked in the field of 68 to play in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, where Virginia was definitely one of the last at large teams selected, much to the chagrin of schools with better analytics and resumes and all the other alleged criteria used by the selection committee to choose the field. So when Virginia played like a YMCA rec team after a night of heavy drinking, I’m sure all those on the outside looking in said some profanity laden version of “I told you.”
What’s perhaps most interesting about Oklahoma, Seton Hall, Indiana State, and a bunch of other teams on the cusp is that they also subsequently chose not to play in the NIT, the second-tier basketball tournament that historically served as a runner-up event, something of a soft landing for players and coaches and also a chance to give your team a bit more practice time, the holy grail for team chemistry. There was a time in fairly distant past where this was actually the most prominent post-season event, but the expansion of the NCAA Tournament and March Madness has relegated the NIT increasingly to something of an afterthought. Which means that for teams like Oklahoma, a Power Five conference team with a massive budget and championship aspirations, putting time and priority into something that won’t be part of One Shining Moment is a losing calculus. Because not playing supposedly would allow more time t help raise money for name, image, and likeness and to recruit students through the wild west of the transfer portal, the architecture of next year’s championship teams. In other words, where coaches once thought that getting in some extra game time was the way to get better, now it seems some coaches think that time could be better spent on things that happen off the court. That is yet another of the seismic shifts in college sports, where the job of being a head coach is in evolutionary flux.
That hasn’t sat well with some in the industry. For example, former Indiana head coach and current ESPN analyst Tom Crean took a shot at coaches who declined an NIT bid, saying that coaches should want to coach and want to give their players a chance to play. And that playing is the best way to get better. That is how a coach would think, that players improve by being coached, and teams improve by playing together. It’s literally what I heard last night in a soccer meeting for incoming high school freshman, a validation for pre-season practices a six-day a week practice schedule. Kids get better by playing more together. And that may be true for your town’s high school. But it won’t save the job of a coach who misses the NCAA Tournament year after year because he didn’t get enough top players to transfer in the offseason or couldn’t find enough endorsement deals to keep his stars from transferring elsewhere.
Which is really what this all comes down to. At some point, big time college coaching is an exercise in self-preservation, if only by necessity. No one stays for long if there isn’t some significant record of success, which for most notable programs means making the NCAA Tournament. Playing in the NIT isn’t going to cut it, and it’s no longer the best way to try and make it there next year like it used to be. Which is why teams like Oklahoma and Seton Hall would rather spend their time more judiciously. It’s also why there’s significant conversations about finally expanding the NCAA Tournament to 76 or 80 teams, making the bubble a bit larger than before and allowing more job security to those on the outside looking in. It also would likely worsen one of the best sports products in the world simply in the name of commerce. Because 68 teams is enough – and for the record, 64 was better. And no matter how many teams you add, there will always be a few teams on the outside looking in.
Of course, they could always play in the NIT. Assuming it’s still around.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler
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