Garden Party

It has many acronyms. “Not Invited Tournament.” “Not Important Tournament.” “Nobody’s Interested Tournament.” “National Insignificant Tournament.” “Not In Tournament.”

Some say it is nothing more than a tournament to see who the 66th best team in the country really is. So strong is the stigma of the NIT as a “consolation prize” for teams with tenuous hopes of getting into the NCAA tournament, and ultimately failing, that Irv Moss, a journalist with the Denver Post wrote, “that one little three letter word….NIT…is far more cutting than any four letter word could ever be.” In fact, David Thompson, the N.C. State All-American, called the NIT “a loser’s tournament.”

But is it true?

Fact is, 31 of the 65 teams earn automatic bids in the NCAA tournament, and in fact many of those teams are weaker…sometimes FAR weaker….than teams who are invited to the NIT.

To give the NIT credibility, a committee of former NCAA head coaches, chaired by C.M Newton (former head coach of Alabama, Vanderbilt, and former athletic director of Kentucky), selects and seeds teams using a similar format to the NCAA. Higher seeded teams always get to play at home, and the final four is played at Madison Square Garden in New York. By doing this, Newton is quoted as saying, “this is the ‘little dance’, not the ‘loser’s tournament.’ What we want to have is a true basketball tournament where there are no preconceived ideas of who gets to New York.”

Tonight, the Auburn Tiger men’s basketball team plays in round 1 of the 2009 National Invitational Tournament. They enter as a number one seed. And as for being “not important, insignificant, not interested,” for the Tigers, nothing could be further from the truth.

Korvotney Barber, Auburn’s senior forward from Manchester, Georgia, said,” we’re very excited about (playing in the NIT), because it is our first time being in postseason play since I have been here. I want to go to New York. I’ve never been to New York, much less Madison Square Garden.”

As a number 1 seed, Auburn has home-court advantage all the way to the final four in New York City.

Remembering the words of Rick Nelson, just win Auburn….and you’ll get to go to a Garden Party. And that’s a pretty nice dance.

War Eagle

WJLaneSR