Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

Sad to say, I think more and more high major schools are going to start ditching the NIT. It might have once made sense if you had a young team that needed more reps and this was the first green shoot out of the barren earth of a rebuild. But now you’ve probably got 8-10 guys itching to transfer out as soon as the final horn sounds, and the coaches would probably be better off solidifying offers to next year’s players than breaking down film on another 19-win team halfway across the country.

 

Only one downside: Delayed access to the transfer portal.

 

Not so much either way. Six seniors outbound, four of them starters plus a sixth man with five years and 163 games (!). Five of them over 1,0o0 points. We've got a couple who likely portal out due to not getting any minutes. One or two that might get NIL offered but no one that's showing any sign of leaving at this point. Andy Kennedy has done a great job bringing in portal players from power schools and he's in on some good ones again. One hard commit signed at PG, and a we'll see on where it goes from there. After the past two years where he pulled players from Clemson, LSU, and Ole Miss among others we trust him.

Kennedy has quietly won a hell of a lot of games since he came home to reestablish the Bartow Standard here. 78 wins through his first three seasons coaching at UAB. So far.

I don't know quite how to word the search but I'd be interested to see what other coaches have won that many games through three seasons after taking over a team. It has to be a short list with some damn good coaches on it.

As to the NIT, I don't look for it to last much longer. Any other year I'd be scoffing at it, but when it gets to the title game I'm fine with making an exception. I suspect that they'll bump the NCAA up to 96, give the top 32 a bye and seed the bottom 64 who play to determine the next 32. Makes more sense than most ideas I've heard.

 

I agree with this. I believe the NIT's TV deal w/ESPN, such as it is, runs out after next year. Pretty good timing for the leap to 96. That said, I could see the NIT still going on as a mid-major tourney. No power conference team with a pulse will be left out of a 96-team NCAA and we've seen this year that the NIT really still matters to the mids. And ESPN is always looking for inventory...if it'll air the CBI semis, it'll air anything.

 

I just hope to god that they require a team to be above .500 in their conference to qualify. I don't give a crap about watching the 8th/9th/10th place teams from the B1G and the SEC.

If they use it as an excuse to muscle out the G5's they can eat a bag of dicks.

 

Part of the reason the NIT matters for mid-majors and low majors is they get the chance to play bigger schools. Beating Southern Miss and Morehead State was nice but UAB got way more attention locally once it took down Vandy in the third round.

Also, a 96-team tournament is gonna suck, both on its own merits and the way it will further drain the intrigue out of conference championships.

 

If you are going to go to 96, EVERY regular-season conference champion automatically makes it.

 

For you and @Neutral Corner: Did any local media make the trip to Vegas? I have to think it would have been easier to pull off a NYC trip.

 

Local media? We don’t even have a proper newspaper anymore!

I doubt any of the affiliates sent someone, but I never watch them unless tornadoes are bearing down on us anyway.

 

And if you win, the school's frat boys can brag about being No. 69. Which is nice.

 

Ha, a fellow alum and I were talking about how we'd rank our school if we won the NIT. I said we'd probably be, like, the 35th-best team in the country or something.

 

I don’t know if it still applies but the NIT was a great place for a young team to build confidence and momentum
One example I can think of (which shows how old I am) is Tulsa, which won the NIT then went to the NCAA the next couple of seasons during the Paul Pressey era