Anyone who votes NIT run is either trolling, very new to college basketball, or very stupid. There are no other alternatives.
Well I think that's a horrible thing to say. Are you God Almighty that you think you can make such a harsh judgement upon another person?
You know, I know of another alternative, its that you are an....
I will refrain from turning this ugly. As the Bible says, "Come now, let us reason together".
I enjoy playing the devil's advocate, so I'll make an attempt to justify someone voting NIT without being either a troll, new to cbb or stupid.
#1 - as someone who as been around cbb for quite some time, and who has conversed with cbb fans from all over the country, the vibe I get is that teams that get knocked out in the 1st round of the NCAA tourney, whether its deserved or not, are basically laughed at, poked fun of, ridiculed and basically, NOTHING positive. I can't imagine how much worse it would be to lose in the playin game.
In fact, I know an NCSU fan that very loudly declared that NCSU was far more deserving than Minnesota, to get into the NCAA tourney. Guess who is just waiting to pounce like a tiger on his prey if NCSU loses their play in game? Yeah, ME!!! I might not, but the little devil on the one shoulder is sure telling it is a good idea and will be so fun. So unprecedented, its so new, this 1st round thing, it would be SO EASY to ridicule NCSU for losing to the likes of Xavier, especially if the Gophers whip Missouri and SMU, both teams whose fans thought they should get into the tourney over, guess who? You got it, NCSU.
On national discussion boards, it was split down the middle almost, 50% thought SMU should have gotten in, 40% thought Minnesota should have gotten in and 5% thought Green Bay should have gotten in. But one thing 100% of those posters all agreed about, was that NCSU is the team that should NOT have gotten in.
I know Cincinnati fans who hear every so often how they might go out in the first or 2nd round, LIKE THEY ALWAYS DO. Sometimes I even wonder if it wouldn't simply be better not to have gone at all?! Remained out of the conversation, at least until the team that went had the real potential to win at least 2 games. The NCAA tourney is basically a get to the Sweet 16 or you suck kind of thing.
The only people that brag about how many tourney appearances they have are teams without any Titles or without a lot of FF appearances or Sweet 16 appearances. A Missouri fan might brag about his school having more tourney appearances than UConn has, but the UConn fan will laugh in his face and retort with, so what, did they do anything when they got there?! UConn's won 3 titles!!! Missouri hasn't even gotten to the FF, EVER.
Heck, according so fans all over the east and in the SEC, the Big Ten sucks because of our lack of titles in the last 15-25 years or so. And why do recruits continue to want to go and play for Calipari at UK?! Despite his team only going to the NIT last year? Because they believe that they might get to play for a Natl Championship the one year they are playing cbb. That's not going to happen if they go to Minnesota or Cincy or Missouri. Doesn't matter that Missouri and Minnesota went to the tourney last year and Kentucky to the NIT.
So first round exits in the NCAA tourney are in a sense, worthless, unless you are a lame ass school like Missouri that doesn't have any FFs to brag about to their recruits and so need to build up their # of appearances.
Minnesota is so far down the list when it comes to # of appearances, what is one more going to matter if we then lose in the first game, and even worse if we lost in the play in game!!! We'd make history for being one of the first PLAY IN GAME LOSERS that was an at large team.
What Minnesota needs is something splashy, something that distinguishes UMn. What could qualify in that regards?!
A new coach. How about a new coach that wins a Championship in his first season. Since its only his first season, and he's such a young coach, a recruit might not see it as a negative, but as a positive, that a first year coach, came into a program looking to finish 10th in the conf, if that, and ALMOST got them into the NCAA tourney, and when they didn't make it, was still able to rally his players enough to play and win an actually competitive tournament, beating the likes of Missouri and SMU, 2 teams who many thought could have or should have been in the tournament.
Now IF, NCSU loses their play in game, and Minnesota goes on to beat Missouri and SMU, it could be from then on argued that Minnesota, as evidenced by what they did in the NIT and what NCSU did, was the team that should have gotten an invite instead of NCSU.
As for how a recruit might view us, he could, like I said, see it as a new young 1st year coach who got robbed of a trip to the NCAA but still went on to win the NIT title. He might even see UMn on TV winning game after game after game, vs losing in a play in game that many people might not even watch?!
THE POLL DID SAY, NIT RUN or LOSS IN PLAYIN GAME.
The poll didn't say, chance to win an NIT title or a chance to make a run in the NCAAs.
IT SAID, what is better, A LOSS in the play in game, OR, a RUN in the NIT.
The choice was clear unless you have a reading comprehension issue?!
The question being, I repeat, would it be better to MAKE A RUN in the NIT or LOSE in the play in game.
It's clear to me, the creator of the poll is saying to assume a loss in the play in game and assume a run in the NIT and then decide which is better.
And I could swear I remember at least one of the players on the 1997 FF Gopher team that said he witnessed the Gophers winning the 1993 NIT Title game and decided then that he wanted to play for the Gophers.
Now whether that is accurate or not, it makes more sense to me that a young kid would enjoy watching a team win, and would be more impressed with that, than watching a team lose. How would that impress anyone?!
NO ONE is impressed by first round NCAA tourney losses. They are extremely disappointing, far more so than regular season games, or NIT games. Best thing about the NIT, unless you are Kentucky, no one notices when you lose, they only notice when you win.
Same can not necessarily be said about the NCAA tourney. I am very aware of and remember Purdue only escaping a first round loss AS A #1 SEED, by 1 point, and Cincy losing in the first round last year, and they've lost in the first weekend far more often than not. So much so its left a lasting impression. Missouri's loss in the 1st round to some schmuck recently sticks in my mind. NONE of those losses impressed me.
I however was kind of impressed by Iowa's run in the NIT last year. Told Iowa fans it would be a sign of good things to come this year with how young their players were. And come this year they did very well, and who knows, their getting left out last year, and considered a snubbed team by some, maybe have had a small impact on their getting in this year, especially in light of Minny being one of the last ones in last year, and Minny being one of the first ones out this year. Almost like they gave Iowa the invite this year instead of Minny because they gave us the invite last year and not Iowa?!
I mean, Iowa did go 1-6 to finish the season, while we went 5-5 beating Iowa even. Our RPI was better than Iowa's and I think Iowa had 2 bad losses just like us?! Not saying its conclusive, just saying, who knows?
But our 1994 team seemed to benefit from their NIT run and Title, possibly in recruiting if that story is true, and with the way the 1994 team started the season, they were on fire, and kind of fizzled towards the end of the season. The 1997 team did all they did after an NIT the year before. Granted I don't think they did well in that NIT, but they felt robbed and that may have fired them up some?!
And wasn't last years early good start preceded by a decent run in the NIT the year prior?!
Now I understand we're not as young and so the effect on next years players may not be as big, but our coach is young, and inexperienced, and still learning and playing 4 or 5 games in the NIT vs getting embarrassed and going to 0-1 in the NCAA tourney could help the program out in the long run, if playing those extra 3-4 games and winning them helps him as a coach, learn and grow and mature.
And how about telling a recruit how Pitino went 25-13 in his first season at Minnesota vs telling them he went 20-14 and lost in the playin game of the NCAA tournament?
OK, one more thing to think about. We get in and lose that play in game, and SMU goes on to win the NIT.
NO BRAINER, millions of fans across the nation will all of a sudden have Minnesota's name on their lips and in their minds, IN A NEGATIVE WAY!!!!!!
As SMU CLEARLY should have gotten in over us. Our RPI and/or Sagarin Ratings will drop below 60, while SMU's will have climbed into the 20s.
Larry Brown will get recruits from us, because of his NIT win, and Pitino's embarrassing loss in the playin game. Proof Larry Brown and his SMU team deserved to get in over our Gophers and young new inexperienced Pitino, who might only have gotten the job because of his father.
VS, our beating Larry Brown's SMU team head to head, and getting a very nice bump in the rankings and ratings for doing it, while NCSU gets the downward bump for losing in the play in game. Thus killing 2 birds with one stone, proving UMn, not SMU should have gotten in over NCSU. Pitino's young enough and its early enough in his career, maybe its better to start slower and build up, than to start out with a small bang only to fizzle out, maybe as soon as tonights game?!
OK, I know I am long winded, and I realize I repeated myself more than even I normally do in that rambling post. But hey, I'm trying to defend the undefendable, right GophersOnTheRise?! lol
