Darrell sent out a letter urging fans to buy season tickets for next year. In the letter he states that we "will compete in the postseason for the first time since 2016". I heard we made a bid, but he seems to indicate we have already been invited to the CBI. I consider this great news. Looking at last year's field, the CBI was made up of 16 solid mid-majors with mostly good records. These are teams we can compete with, especially if Makhel is more or less healthy. Yes, like everyone else, I probably would have preferred an NCAA bid. However, the likelihood would have been us taking a beating as a 15 or 16 seed. We may well lose our first CBI game, but we also have a legitimate shot at winning the thing. With the NIT screwing mid-majors, with their rule changes, I am thankful there is a tournament like the CBI to give programs like ours a chance to compete.

Just to follow-up, it appears that the Power schools are trying their best to limit the number of mid/low major schools in postseason. The first step was eliminating conference champions from the NIT. I don't think they are stupid enough to destroy the one thing that makes the NCAA tournament so great. But, I have little doubt they will increase the number of play-in games. I'm sure they will have "8" sixteen seeds competing for 4 slots. They may add more 11 seed play-in games as well, so they can increase the number of power schools in the tournament. I could also see them making 15 seeds play-in as well. Who knows what will happen in the future, but it seems clear that the money schools will do what they can to push the "little" guy out.

From a business standpoint it is stupid to pay $27000 to enter a tournament you could lose the first game. It makes no sense. Granted, we have a good team, but will we get $27000 worth of exposure? Without using Google tell me who won the cbi last year? Who won the nit last year? Unless you are a basketball need you can't answer that. This team deserves post season play, but at what expense. Put that $27000 into the nil budget so we can enjoy another year of competing for an OVC title.

(03-13-2024 07:10 PM)ez272 Wrote:  From a business standpoint it is stupid to pay $27000 to enter a tournament you could lose the first game. It makes no sense. Granted, we have a good team, but will we get $27000 worth of exposure? Without using Google tell me who won the cbi last year? Who won the nit last year? Unless you are a basketball need you can't answer that. This team deserves post season play, but at what expense. Put that $27000 into the nil budget so we can enjoy another year of competing for an OVC title.

Putting 27K in the NIL budget (which would be illegal anyway) would give each player 2K. Would make little or no difference with regard to getting or keeping a player. I believe showing players that the administration cares about basketball and is willing to do what is necessary to give them the opportunity to play in postseason would do a lot more in the long run.

I think this is a good move. This team was successful and worked their tails off the last leg of the season and just fell one game short of a NCAA bid. They deserve some sort of post-season play in my opinion and it would be great for the players.

However, believe it or not, tournaments like this may bring some momentum into the next season. If everything goes our way this offseason, we're getting some key pieces back next year and if we win a couple games in the CBI, then that's something they can use as motivation to say "hey, if we can do this now, then what's stopping us from going further next year?" So, I think post-season play is a good reward and possible momentum builder for next season.

As for the $27,000, I'm not worried about it. Darrell probably has a few friends who aren't afraid to donate some cash to the program to cover it and in the grand scheme of things, it really isn't terrible too much money.

Evansville has accepted an invitation to the CBI. Sounds like we have as well, although we haven't officially announced it. A little disappointed to see a 16-17 Evansville being invited, since last year they did not take anyone under .500. But, they tripled last season's win total and are from one of the better mid-major conferences (MVC). I would assume that UT-Martin might get an invite since they tied for first place with us and Morehead. I expect other conference winners, who lost in their tournaments, including High Point, Eastern Kentucky, and Central Connecticut will be invited. Based on last year's field I would expect a couple of teams from CUSA (WKU would be interesting), the Horizon (they have 4 teams with 20 wins available), and maybe Troy and/or ASU from the Sun Belt. Ya, I know it's not the NCAA tournament, but it will be fun to see who is in the field and who we are matched up with.

UC-San Diego has accepted a bid to the CBI. They were 21-11 overall, and 15-5 in the Big West Conference. Hopefully, we will see a lot more 20 win mid-majors accept CBI bids.

Men are practicing on Fisher Court right now


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