Time for a new Tourney…SUPPORT Your CBI Post-season Tournament.

by GtmoBlue14:25 Hrs10MAR08Falls Church, VA

The NCAA farmers down in Shawnee-Mission, Kansas have bought, spayed, and/or neutered the NIT. It is a shame, and a disgrace to college basketball that a venerated, traditional tournament venue such as the NIT has been rendered obsolete – inconsequential by its’ competitor tournament. The NCAA thinks they are the only show in town…those corn n wheat “husk-shockers” wanna be Ma Bell (a monopoly). The NCAA thinks that by their gutting of the NIT, that they will increase and strengthen their stranglehold on college basketball.

History: The NCAA invites 65 collegiate teams to its’ Division 1 basketball tournament and the National Invitational Tournament–which started in 1938, a year earlier than the NCAA, selects another 32 teams. The NIT reduced its field last season back to 32 from 40 the previous year. The NCAA has owned the NIT since a 2005 settlement buyout which ended a four-year legal fight between the parties.
Furthermore, for those that care about college basketball…I would endorse your skipping the NIT and opting in for the new CBI Post-season Tourney. It has the benefit of being independent of the NCAA cronies and will also offer the benefit of future bigger paydays than the NCAAnit. Campus sites and Regional sites will be floating/mobile with hopefully a stationary Championship venue such as Atlanta or Chicago over time.

The College Basketball Invitational will be staged this March by The Gazelle Group, which is based in Princeton, N.J., and runs the 2K Sports College Hoop Classic that benefits Coaches vs. Cancer and the O’Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic.

The CBI intends to compete with the NIT for teams that did not make the NCAA’sfield of 65. “It would be unfair for us to wait, so we’regoing to let the NCAA pick their field and then we’ll invite the 66th team, it wouldn’t be fair not to,” Gazelle Group president Rick Giles said Wednesday night. “One of the big things is giving teams a choice. Competition is good and makes everything better. To date there hasn’t been a choice and we’ll make this a viable choice. “Giles said there will not be a committee of outsiders picking the field. It will be us inviting the teams, and we’ll do the bracketing and seeding,” he said. “We will be 100 percent accountable. You might not agree with us, but we will be accountable. “The teams will be invited along the same criteria used by the NCAA and NIT — overall and conference records and late-season play. Four geographic brackets will bebalanced competitively.

Television arrangements will be announced as they are confirmed. It will be a single-elimination tournamentthrough the first two rounds and the semifinals, all played at campus sites. The Championship Series will be a best-of-three with the higher-seeded team playing at home in the first game and, if necessary, the third.

The first round is scheduled for March 18-19. The Championship Series will be March 31, April 2 and April 4. Originally published on ESPN.com, November 14, 2007, 6:56 PM ET

The NCAA is systematically killing collegiate sports in the name of increased profit margins. The organization has sold out to corporate imagemakers, marketers, and sponsors – all in the neverending quest for more revenues. It is time for a change.

Support the postseason CBI Tourney in 2008.

It is time for the non-BCS conferences & leagues to reformat, reconstitute, rebuild, and rejoin the NAIA in 2008-09.
“Dump the NCAA” in 2009.

Respectfully,

gtmoBlue