FanHouse NIT

The snubbed teams like St. Mary's, Creighton, San Diego State and Penn State will get their chance to make their argument that they were deserving of an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament over Arizona, Minnesota, and well... that's about it.

The top four seeds in the NIT are San Diego State, Auburn, Creighton and Florida. The SEC packed the second tier tournament with four teams.

In the five stages of grief, the final phase is acceptance. While it is not clear whether the Wildcat fanbase is at that stage yet, the Kentucky athletic department is. They have told the NIT that they would accept a bid.

"We're still planning on making the NCAA tournament but if we don't, we told them on Friday we would play," athletic director Mitch Barnhart said.

Okay, maybe not full acceptance, but they are getting there. Kentucky has not missed the NCAA Tournament since 1991. Only Arizona and Kansas have longer current streaks.

In the five stages of grief, the final phase is acceptance. While it is not clear whether the Wildcat fanbase is at that stage yet, the Kentucky athletic department is. They have told the NIT that they would accept a bid.

"We're still planning on making the NCAA tournament but if we don't, we told them on Friday we would play," athletic director Mitch Barnhart said.

Okay, maybe not full acceptance, but they are getting there. Kentucky has not missed the NCAA Tournament since 1991. Only Arizona and Kansas have longer current streaks.

Frank Young's first significant college playing time came in Madison Square Garden. Starter Tyrone Salley was ill and glued to a toilet in his hotel room, and coach John Beilein turned to the then-sophomore, and Young's college career began that night -- he scored 14 points and helped WVU destroy Boston College. WVU went on to the finals of the Big East tournament, and then to the Elite Eight.

And Frank Young's career ended last night much like it began -- with a dominating victory on the Madison Square Garden floor. Young shredded the net all night long, partially because he's a great shooter, and partially because Clemson was as well-equipped to guard WVU's offense as Richard Simmons is to win the world heavyweight boxing championship. Frank the Tank finished with 24 points on 6-of-7 shooting from three-point land, and the Mountaineers pounded the Clemson Tigers, 78-73, in a game that wasn't nearly as close as the scoreboard would indicate.

Check out the scoring output from Frank Young in the NIT: 17, 31, 25, 16, 24. The man was a blowtorch. Freshman Da'Sean Butler had his career-best game with 20 and 7 off the bench, point guard Darris Nichols had 9 assists and two-guard Alex Ruoff had 8 assists.

So they'll drink heavily tonight in Morgantown in celebration of the NIT Championship (or, as they do on any average Thursday night), but tomorrow, only half of the vomiting will be due to the gallons upon gallons of cheap beer consumed.

The other half, of course, will be out of concern that John Belien, one of best coaches in the nation, is scheduled to talk with people from Michigan this weekend. In the last three years, WVU's gone to the Elite Eight, Sweet Sixteen, and won the NIT Championship. There are only a handful of schools out there who can claim that kind of success over a three-year period, and that begins and ends with Beilein.

Two pretty amazing NIT games last night, decided by a combined two points. Here was the buzzer-beating end to the first one.



He misses badly with a few seconds left, and they go right back to him at the buzzer ... splash. Onions, my friend.

In the other NIT semi, Clemson held on to beat Air Force, 67-67, setting up a battle between WVU and Clemson on Thursday night for the title of "Bubble Team With the Most Right to Give the Selection Committee the Middle Finger."

One more NIT post before tomorrow, when the NCAA games start, and we all lose interest in everything else going on in the world ...

Clemson tried their hardest to blow a 17-point lead against Syracuse, but ultimately, couldn't pull it off. The number 17 is not a kind one for Clemson. They started out the season 17-0, before losing 10 of their next 14. They went up by 17 tonight, and Syracuse stormed back.

The Cuse's Josh Wright had a chance to tie things up with a very good look at a three-ball with 10 seconds left, but it clanked. Clemson got the rebound, was fouled, hit a couple of free throws, and that was all she wrote. Demetris Nichols shot 3-of-8 from beyond the arc for Syracuse. The rest of the team combined for 0-of-8. Clemson heads to the Garden for the NIT semifinals.

And they'll be joined there by the Air Force Falcons, who won a thriller (which is not often said about 52-51 games) against DePaul. In the NIT, top seeds get to play at home until the semifinals, which is a bigger advantage for Air Force than it is for most people. They beat DePaul in their own building last night, running their non-conference home winning streak to 33 games. That's a pretty solid home court advantage.

Tuesday night, it'll be West Virginia against Mississippi State, and Clemson against Air Force. Times still yet to be determined.

The NIT's an easy target for ridicule (as you'll see when some team wins it and the clever "We're #66!" headlines make their annual appearance), but I'm choosing to be a glass-is-half-full guy about it. The teams on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble are, in many cases, playing some very good basketball.

Mississippi State found a way to bottle up future lottery pick Al Thornton, and whooped Florida State by 15. It wasn't so much a bottling up, actually, as just finding a way to keep him off the floor. Thornton got in early foul trouble and played just 22 minutes.

For their trouble, they'll get to play West Virginia, who beat NC State in Morgantown, 71-66. Senior Frank Young had 25 in his last game at the Coliseum, burying threes in peoples' grills all night long. He set the record for career three-pointers by a Mountaineer, and got a pretty nice compliment from NC State's Gavin Grant, the poor sap assigned to guard him:

"I'm in his shirt and he still made one," Grant said of Young. "They made big, crazy shots. They deserved to win."

The Bulldogs and Mountaineers will meet next Tuesday at the Garden (time still to be determined). The other two quarterfinals, Syracuse vs. Clemson, and Air Force vs. DePaul, are tomorrow night.

Teams that slid off the bubble (or had their bubbles aggressively violated by an incompetent selection committee, as some would have you believe) spent much of today bitching and crying about being excluded from the tournament. And that's fine ... it's to be expected, it happens every year, and yes, it's true that some teams did get unfairly railroaded.

But don't let it linger too long, alright? The NIT can be a valuable thing for a young basketball team, and if a team goes in there all mopey and plays with extended lower lips, they're missing an opportunity to grow their team.

I'll use West Virginia as an example, because I think they fit the profile pretty well. They're a young team, with just two seniors that play significant minutes, and the backups for those two guys are already in place. Making a deep run into the NIT would be way more valuable to this team than would be getting bounced in the first or second round of the NCAA. It's all about getting that tournament experience. One-and-done is a different feeling.

Remember a couple of years ago when the NIT filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the NCAA, because they mandated that if a team was invited to the NCAA Tournament, they had to accept? One of the guys who testified on behalf of the NIT was Bob Knight, who said he could envision circumstances where he'd rather his team played in the NIT than the NCAA. If there's no realistic chance of making a deep NCAA run, why not get a few more games of tournament experience?

And I know you'd like to think that your bubble team was going to make a run to the Final Four, but, and I'm sorry to have the be the one to tell you this, they weren't. If you were on the bubble to begin with, it's overwhelmingly unlikely that you'd even sniff the Final Four. Yes, there are cinderella teams every year. No, it wasn't going to be you.

So my advice to players and coaches would be to take a day or two, mope and weep, and then prepare for the NIT like it is the big dance. Lemons, lemonade ... that whole thing.

I know I've been saying it for a while now, but it feels official now. UConn is going to the NIT. The Huskies lost a home game to Providence 84-72. They didn't just lose. They blew an 11 point halftime lead at home. UConn had the halftime lead, but Providence came out to a 16-0 run to start the second half. The run was extended to 30-8 and UConn was toast. The team collectively hung its head and just tried to get the game finished as quickly as possible. They had no fight.

Credit the Friars who finally got a Big East road win. They had quickly fallen back to reality once they went on the road in conference play. This time, though, they shot tremendously in the second half with 50 second half points. The Huskies had no defense and less offense.

It's one thing to lose at home to Marquette. To lose this way to Providence leaves UConn 2-5 in the Big East. They still have 2 games with Syracuse, a game with Louisville, Villanova and Georgetown. At this point the best win for UConn is St. John's?