Chansky's Notebook: NIT Not for All

Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.

Playing in the NIT is good for some teams, not so good for others.

Now that all the hubbub over UNC snubbing the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), not to be confused with the off-court competition for Name-Image-Likeness money (NIL), is over, the Tar Heels are looking pretty good in their decision to get started on having a better 2023-24 season.

While schools waiting for the best players to enter the transfer portal have finally seen 48 teams lose in the NCAA tournament, it looks like some NIT teams had hangovers from Big Dance disappointment. Especially in the ACC.

Clemson, the No. 1 seed in one of the four NIT brackets, ended an outstanding regular season and conference tournament by losing to unseeded Morehead State in overtime. In Death Valley. Hear that sound? It was however many fans showed up at Littlejohn high tailing it for spring football.

Virginia Tech got an NIT bid and was unseeded. So it had to travel to Cincinnati and play Wes Miller’s well-schooled Bearcats. The Hokies led by three points at the half before letting Cinci run them out of Fifth-Third Arena in the 81-72 final. Another loss to another lesser conference.

Two made it from the ACC, which had five receiving NCAA bids, so less than half the 15 teams in the once-powerhouse league didn’t play in the postseason. Wake Forest, which went 2-5 in its last 7 games, never got the NIT ask.

A few other schools should have followed the Tar Heels strategy.

Washington State lost to Eastern Washington, sure to be the summer punch line across the Evergreen State. EW lasted one more game before getting blown out by top-seeded Oklahoma State, which then lost to North Texas and failed to be the first Power 5 team to reach the semifinals in Las Vegas.

Despite Villanova having a worse season than third-seeded Liberty, do you think the Wildcats liked flying to Lynchburg and losing to the Flames? Well, they did.

And how about Rutgers, which with Carolina was one of the First Four Out, accepted a bid as top seed of its region and lost at home to Hofstra in OT. It was goodnight for the Scarlet Knights, who have slept it off by now.

The best game that nobody saw was Saturday at noon in Nashville when second-seeded Vanderbilt and dapper coach Jerry Stackhouse entertained third seed Michigan and beat the Wolverines, who blew a late lead with four straight horrendous, scoreless possessions. Vandy plays UAB tonight for a spot in Vegas, where Stackhouse would be a headliner.

As for UNC, well, it lost a bunch of tough games and said no to the NIT, just like Duke and Coach K did in 2021.

Featured image via Associated Press/Jacob Kupferman

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Chansky’s Notebook: NIT Not for All

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