LOOKING AHEAD
UNM ponders NIT, WNIT possibilities for its basketball teams >>
Fans have known for sometime that this season’s Mountain West Conference is a one-bid league in men’s basketball.
Win next week’s league tournament or kiss your NCAA Tournament hopes goodbye.
But what about other potential postseason tournaments should the Lobos not punch their ticket to the Big Dance?
UNM confirmed this week that the NCAA has reached out to gauge the availability and interest of the Lobos — both men’s and women’s teams — for the National Invitation Tournament. For tournaments beyond that, don’t count on it for the men.
“We’re in the process of doing the paperwork, and I submitted part of it (Wednesday) for them,” said UNM deputy athletic director Janice Ruggiero. “That’s good to go. The WNIT has also asked and we submitted that paperwork for them as well.”
That paperwork is sent to far more schools than actually get invitations to the NCAA-run event — a 32-team field on the men’s side and 64-team field for the WNIT. Unlike in years past, the NIT does not award home games to programs based on high home attendance figures, but rather based on RPI ratings and other factors.
Invitations to the NIT come March 12 and 13 or are automatically awarded to teams that win their league’s regular season championship, but not the automatic NCAA Tournament
berth that comes with a tournament title.
UNM told the NCAA it is interested and could host the NIT, though not in the Pit. As has been the case the past several years, UNM’s contract with the PBR and the Ty Murray Invitational in the Pit tie up the arena the week from about Tuesday, March 14 through Sunday the 19th. The PBR rodeo dates are March 17-19, but require several days of pre-event setup.
“On some of those dates, if we had a home game, we would more than likely go play out at Santa Ana Star Center (in Rio Rancho),” Ruggiero said. “Johnson Center (the on-campus arena where the women’s team played in last season’s WBI tournament) is just not an option for us. It was difficult for us playing there last year.”
What about those other tournaments? Last year, the women played in the WBI, a pay-to-play event that the team hosted, but lost 75-67 to Weber State. The men’s team agreed to play in the CBI tournament, owned by a company called the Gazelle Group, then backed out after a first-round loss in the MWC tournament.
The men’s program has made it clear it will no longer consider events other than the NCAA or NIT tournaments.
“I just don’t think that our program is one of those programs that’s going to pay to play for wins,” UNM men’s coach Craig Neal said Thursday. “Now, if it’s the NIT? Yes. If we make the NCAA? Awesome. If we get selected to play in the NIT, yeah, but I don’t think that we’ll play in any pay-for-play tournaments.”
Ruggiero confirmed they’ve already told the CBI it was not interested. As for the women, Ruggiero acknowledged the door is still open to such an event.
“I’m not ruling that out completely for the women,” she said. “I would have to talk with Mike (Bradbury) about that.”
Last year when Yvonne Sanchez was fired as women’s coach, AD Paul Krebs said the standard should be higher.
“We need to consistently participate in the NCAA Tournament or the (W)NIT and frankly, that’s not happening,” Krebs said.
MEN MAKE GOOD: Last year, the men’s team signed a contract with the Gazelle Group to play in the CBI tournament before backing out after a quarterfinal loss in the MWC tournament.
The group allowed UNM out of the $40,000 contract with the promise of participating in a future in-season event put on by the company.
UNM last month agreed to play in the 2020 Legends Classic in Brooklyn, N.Y.
That event will feature two games in the Barclays Center in New York and two home games for UNM in the Pit between Nov. 13-17, 2020, against teams coming off seasons with RPI ratings no worse than 175.
“We put a clause in there that we didn’t want to play anybody that has a (worse) RPI than that,” Ruggiero said. “It just kills us.”