Not Included

It's almost time for the biggest "who really cares" event in sports, the NIT. At one time, the NIT was a prestigious tournament, but these days people more frequently joke that NIT stands for "Not Invited Tournament" or "Not Included Tournament."
Decades ago, there would be some debate over which team was the true national champion, the winner of the NIT or the winner of the NCAA Tournament. Now, about all the NIT champion can lay claim to is to show the NCAA Selection Committee that they should have been included in the Big Dance.
Of course, I'm not so certain the NIT champion can make that claim alone. The NCAA Tournament used to only include conference champions, hence the importance of conference tournaments and the inclusion of so-called AQ or automatic qualifier teams. Too many quality teams, it was argued, were left out of the NCAA Tournament, which is what fueled the NIT/NCAA champion debate. The Tournament field was expanded several times to include 68 teams as of today. This, the argument holds, should be enough to ensure everyone who has claim to the national title is included. But as the NIT bracket plainly shows, this isn't the case. Do any of the NIT teams have any claim on the national crown? Probably not. They do, however, have more of a claim to it than teams included in the March Madness bracket.
I can't even begin to reconcile how Cal Poly, a team that was both sub-.500 overall and in Big Sky competition, deserves a berth at the Big Dance...and yet, there they are, with a 13-19 record and, as of this moment, as good a chance to win the national championship as Florida or Kansas. Except, Cal Poly has to play a so-called "play-in" game, meaning they have one extra win to compile in order to cut the nets down in Arlington after the Final Four. That seems fair. Except it isn't fair. The idea behind seeding is that top-seeded teams should, theoretically, have a somewhat easier path to the Final Four, making success in the regular season meaningful. But...then...a pair of #12 seeds and #11 seeds are also involved in "play in" games. Why should NC State or Iowa have a tougher path to the Final Four than Eastern Kentucky? Sure, EKU plays a tougher team in the opening round but they have to win fewer games to reach the Final Four.
But back to the original point about the NIT. Isn't the purpose of March Madness to crown a national champion? Ha ha, the basketball pundits claim, if only football had an awesome tournament like us. Indeed. But why not have a tournament that includes the 68 best teams in the country? Surely there will still be some snubs and debate, but some cases are not up for debate.
#15 seed American University lost to USF and St. Mary's, two teams in the NIT. #15 Wofford lost to NIT teams Georgia and Minnesota (by 20 or more in each game). Cal Poly was able to advance to Big Dance because it went 1-2 against UC Irvine. The "1" in question just happened to come in the conference tournament.
And conference tournaments are another thing. After the expansion of the field, the value of winning (and therefore even playing) a conference tournament became pointless. And yet there they are, still be contested to this day. In fact, not only do these meaningless conference tournaments still exist, conferences that never had tournaments before have since added them. And why would that be? While you think about it, I will simply say, this blog post is brought to you by Coke Zero, Hyundai and our friends at Buffalo Wild Wings. Have you figured it out yet?
I guess it really doesn't matter much one way or the other, as long as there are 68 total teams...unless you're Cal Poly...or UC Irvine...or SMU or Green Bay or Georgia or St. Mary's or...