LSU didn’t qualify for the NCAA Tournament or National Invitational Tournament, but apparently it has too good of a basketball program for the College Basketball Invitational. This just in: it doesn’t.
The Tigers finished in the middle of the pack in the worst power conference this season and maybe the weakest group of basketball teams in Southeastern Conference history. They should be thankful to be invited to any kind of postseason tournament.
When the NCAA Tournament and NIT brackets were released and LSU’s name was nowhere to be found, an obvious alternative for the Tigers would have been to accept an invite to the CBI. If you’re unfamiliar with the CBI, it’s a 16-team tournament in which the champion is decided by the two finalists playing a best-of-three series.
The only drawback is that schools have to pay to host games before the championship round, but LSU could have easily made the money back through ticket sales and concessions.
Saying first-year coach Johnny Jones and his squad overachieved during the 2012-13 season is an understatement. LSU had 19 wins this season, one more than it did last season under former coach Trent Johnson. But LSU could have added more wins by playing in the CBI.
At first, I didn’t mind the Tigers ending their season one victory shy of a 20-win campaign in Jones’ first season. Then I heard this:
“We didn’t consider any other tournament,” Jones told Matthew Harris of The Advocate on Sunday night.
Wait, what?
This has been a picture-perfect first season for Jones considering the team he inherited, but the Tigers’ season shouldn’t be over yet.
Programs aren’t built overnight. LSU isn’t Kentucky, Duke or Kansas.
I know Jones is a Dale Brown disciple, but this isn’t the 1980s.
Since 2000, LSU has only reached the NCAA Tournament four times, including a Final Four appearance in 2006. If Jones wants to get back to the glory days of the program under Brown’s tutelage, he can’t expect to flip a switch and the team turn into a basketball powerhouse.
This is a football school, not a basketball institution. I have no doubt Jones will eventually buck that trend, but spurning the CBI isn’t the way to go about accomplishing it.
I’ve heard LSU shouldn’t waste its time playing with lower-level teams that couldn’t even make the NIT or Big Dance. I’m sorry, but doesn’t LSU fall into that category as well?
People think the CBI is just a place for desperate teams trying to salvage subpar seasons. It’s not.
Purdue is participating in the CBI this season after missing out on the NCAA Tournament for the first time in six seasons. But LSU is too high-profile of a program to play in such a disgrace to basketball, right?
Five of the past six championship finalists in the CBI are in the NCAA Tournament field this season. The tournament could have been used as a building block for next season, like Oregon, VCU and Creighton have done in past seasons.
The best example of a team using the CBI as a springboard for future success is VCU. The Rams and coach Shaka Smart shocked the college basketball world in 2011 by making the Final Four as a No. 11 seed.
Where were the Rams the March before? Hoisting the CBI trophy after winning the championship series against St. Louis.
It was Smart’s first season as coach when VCU won the CBI in 2010.
He wasn’t worried about being disrespected by playing in a third-tier tournament. Smart just wanted his team to get as much experience as it could.
If you have the opportunity to play, take it.
“It’s just disappointing,” Jones said. “It’s disappointing to see other teams keep playing games, and your season’s over and your seniors have played their last games.”
There’s just one problem, Johnny: you could have kept playing games along with those other teams.
Jones will have a news conference today to recap the season instead of game planning for a CBI contest. And that isn’t the right move.
Micah Bedard is a 22-year-old history senior from Houma.
