Pardon me while I jump on my horse today.
College basketball must be taking a page out of the college football playbook. College basketball has set up its own bowl season with more games and more teams participating.
Like the college bowl scenario, more is not necessarily better.
We all know the NCAA tournament is the crown jewel of the postseason. I don’t care how many more tournaments they play, those events seem hollow. It feels like competing for third or fourth place in the National Spelling Bee.
For my international readers, college basketball now has three tournaments beside the NCAA tournament: the National Invitational Tournament (NIT), the College Insider and the College Basketball Invitational.
Those remaining tournaments receive the crumbs after the NCAA selections. And some of those crumbs are mediocre just like 7-5 and 6-6 teams in college bowl games. Some of these teams don’t know it’s time to stay home and try again next year.
There’s a good example in my state. Iowa Hawkeye fans are all giddy about their team making the NIT. Iowa’s record is 17-16. Iowa fans are just happy this tournament wants them after a real dry spell the past several years. But do the Hawkeyes really deserve a bid? I think not.
Average is apparently one new standard in college basketball. Turn on the lights in the arena, maybe put it on TV and presto you have fan interest. That is until the fans wise up. Unfortunately, the wisdom might take a while.
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