Air Force would consider spot in new postseason tournament
Air Force won’t be part of the 65-team NCAA Tournament field this season unless it wins the Mountain West Conference Tournament and secures the league’s automatic bid.
And to return to the National Invitation Tournament — Air Force reached its semifinals last season — the 14-12 Falcons will need an impressive late-season run. None of last year’s NIT teams had fewer than 18 victories, and Air Force has just three regular-season games and the conference tournament remaining.
But if Air Force doesn't crash “The Big Dance” or get an invite to the NIT, it will have one more hope for postseason play.
The Gazelle Group, which runs several college basketball tournaments, has created the College Basketball Invitational, a 16-team postseason tourney that will debut in March. The first three rounds of the tournament will be single-elimination with games played on the home courts of higher seeds. The championship will be a best-of-three series with alternating sites.
“We think there are enough good teams that this will be good basketball,” said Rick Giles, president of the Gazelle Group.
Giles based that assessment on the parity in college basketball, chatter about possibly expanding the NCAA Tournament and recent changes to the NIT. The NIT trimmed its field from 40 to 32 last season, and it automatically picks regular-season conference champions that do not win their conference tournaments (thus earning automatic bids to the NCAA Tournament) and do not receive at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. That takes away chances for at-large teams, Giles said. Last season, Connecticut, LSU and Oklahoma, among others, did not play in the postseason.
But is there room for a third tournament? The NIT already is considered a weak consolation prize for missing the NCAA Tournament. And the NIT flies well below the radar of most fans fixated on their NCAA Tournament pools.
The CBI, of course, is trying to avoid being considered an NIT consolation bracket — one that will allow the champion to declare “We’re No. 98!” Giles hopes the CBI’s format and what he called a “better financial package” for schools that host games (50 percent of gate revenues, though the school must guarantee a certain number of fans, Giles said) will help it compete with the NIT. He said a deal that calls for 11 games to be televised is being finalized.
But getting teams to choose the CBI over the NIT will be a tough sell. The NIT has history on its side — it started in 1938 and once was considered more prestigious than the NCAA Tournament — and the lure of playing semifinals and final at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Air Force coach Jeff Reynolds said Wednesday he doesn’t “know much about” the CBI. Senior guard Tim Anderson and junior guard/forward Andrew Henke said they thought the NIT holds more cachet, at least for now.
Still, as is the case with college football’s seemingly endless parade of bowl games, the lure of extending the season might be enough. Teams will be able to hold a few more practices to kick-start preparations for the following season. And coaches will get to boast to recruits that they reached “the postseason.”
Last March, Giles said the Gazelle Group contacted 16 teams left out of the NCAA Tournament and NIT to gauge their interest.
“Fifteen of 16 said ‘Definitely,’” Giles said. “And the 16th didn’t say ‘No.’”
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0365 or jake.schaller@gazette.com. Check out our Air Force blog at gazetteafasports.blogspot.com
