By Chris Vaccaro & Ed Morrone
What is the NIT?
The National Invitational Tournament is a postseason basketball tournament that invites 40 teams to play for a championship in a lower spotlight compared to the NCAA Tournament. Teams who were on the cusp of making the NCAAs and weren’t selected are usually given a bid to the NIT. The semifinals and finals are always played at Madison Square Garden, and it’s held for both men’s and women’s teams.
What could the Pride have done earlier in the season to make the NCAAs?
On Monday’s Mike and the Mad Dog radio show, head coach Tom Pecora noted a few key moments throughout the season that could have hindered the Pride’s chances of making this year’s NCAA Tournament. 1.Although Notre Dame didn’t make the “Big Dance” either at 15-13 overall and 6-10 in conference play, their 69-50 victory over the Pride was an early sting for the Hempstead gang. If Notre Dame had a higher RPI, and the score’s differential was less, the Pride would have had credit to its side. But it lost a non-conference game to a weak RPI opponent by more than 15 points. Pecora took his starters out and had FIVE freshmen on the floor for the last three minutes, something he said he’ll rethink in the future. 2. The Pride lost conference games to VCU, Northeastern and Towson, all bad breaks since two more wins would have secured a CAA regular season championship, and a better outlook going into the NCAA Tournament selection committee’s picks.
What is RPI?
The Ratings Performance Index is a formula better used to gauge men’s and women’s college basketball teams. The formula: 1/4*(Winning Percentage) + 1/2*(Opponents’ Average Winning Percentage) + 1/4*(Opponents’ Opponents’ Winning Percentage) = RPI. Therefore, the better teams a school plays and beats, the higher the RPI can be.
What is the selection committee and how does it work?
The NCAA Selection Committee’s job is to select the 65-team field for the Tournament each year and it is composed of athletic directors and conference commissioners throughout Division-I basketball. The committee is chosen so that both major and mid-major conferences are adequately represented in the field. In recent years, there has been at least one woman on the committee, and members must leave the room when their school or conference is being discussed.
Why didn’t the committee select the Pride?
This is the $1 million question burning on everyone’s minds. The Pride was a bubble team going in, meaning it put its fate in the selection committee’s hands when it failed to win the conference championship game. The team knew it may not get in, but teams such as Air Force, Utah State, Seton Hall and most glaringly, George Mason, were selected, which has Pecora and his bunch scratching their heads, especially after his team beat Mason twice in 11 days.
What are the Pride’s NIT chances?
Probably pretty good, considering the team went from a bubble team in the NCAAs to a favorite in the NIT. The Pride grabbed a No. 3 seed (which seems a bit low), meaning it will have only one home game unless some higher seeds are upset. It starts tonight with Nebraska, and then the team will likely travel to Saint Joseph’s in a rematch of last year’s NIT (a 53-44 Hawks win). If the Pride wins that, it will probably have to travel to play Maryland, and if it gets that far, the semifinals and championship are just 30 miles away at Madison Square Garden.
Adrian Uter play host to Nebraska in the NIT tonight at 7 p.m.