Well – I don’t necessarily believe that. But what the Conference USA teams have done so far is amazing, and I don’t remember something like this happening ever – although it would have to happen to a non-power conference. Basically, the power conferences have too many teams in the tournament, and thus, they can not achieve what Conference USA has done.
Conference USA had 5 teams make the post-season. Only one of them, Florida Atlantic, the regular season and tournament champion, got invited to the Big Dance. The 2nd and 3rd place teams in the conference, North Texas and UAB were invited to play in the NIT. It looked like the 4th place team, Middle Tennessee State, did not get in to a tournament (I would suspect they did not get an invite, but it is possible they turned down the CBI). Charlotte and Rice did end up playing in the CBI.
Rice managed to win a game against Duquesne before losing in the CBI quarterfinals to Southern Utah. But Charlotte ended up winning the CBI championship by beating Western Carolina, Milwaukee, Radford and Eastern Kentucky.
North Texas (24-7 with a NET ranking of 38) and UAB (24-9 with a NET ranking of 57) both were left out by the Selection Committee. North Texas ended up with the frustrating statistic of being the best ranked team in the NET ranking not to get into the tournament. North Texas is a victim of the classic good small conference team. They were not able to schedule a single power conference team this season, so their only non-conference game against a tourney-bound team was a bad road loss to St. Mary’s in their second game of the season, so their best wins were the 2 wins against UAB. If this was their choice, then heading to the NIT feels fair – but many times, power conference teams don’t want to schedule a team who is still being recognized for their 2021 tournament victory against Purdue. No one wants to schedule the small school who can beat you.
Well – all North Texas has done in the NIT is beat Alcorn State (SWAC regular season champion), Sam Houston State (2nd place in the WAC), Oklahoma State from the Big 12, and Wisconsin from the Big 10 to play tomorrow night in the NIT championship.
UAB was lucky enough to play a few more power conference teams – they managed to beat South Carolina and Georgia, while losing on the road to West Virginia. The Blazers were also one of the three teams to beat Conf USA champion Florida Atlantic. But with a NET ranking of 57
Well – all UAB did was beat Southern Miss (the Sun Belt regular season champion), Morehead State (the OVC regular season champion), Vanderbilt from the SEC, and Utah Valley (the WAC regular season champion) to earn the opportunity to play North Texas for a 4th time this season – this time for the NIT championship.
And of course, Florida Atlantic managed to knock off Memphis (American conf tourney champ), Fairleigh Dickinson (NEC auto-bid), 4th seeded Tennessee, and 3rd seeded Kansas State and are now 35-3 as they make their way to Houston for the Final Four.
So while I understand that they are not all playing NCAA Tournament teams, so far in March, the 5 Conference USA teams that made the post-season are currently 18-1, won the CBI championship, beat 4 regular season champions from other conferences in the NIT, beat a Big 10, SEC and Big 12 team in the NIT, will claim the NIT championship on Thursday, and will play in the Final 4 on Saturday.
Normally, only the smaller conferences get invited to the CBI, so I suspect it has never happened. But right now, Conference USA has the possibility of sweeping all 3 post-season tournaments. What an amazing achievement that would be!!!!
No matter what happens in the final 4 men’s basketball games in the season, Conference USA deserves a ton of respect for what they have done this March.