It’s March Madness, so it’s time for teams, coaches and television analysts to complain about who made the tournament and who didn’t.
It’s also the time to question some baffling conduct from tournament organizers, and in this case, the people at the National Invitational Tournament are the ones with egg on their faces.
After the 68-team NCAA Tournament field is selected, 32 teams that didn’t make it are invited to continue their seasons in the NIT. One of those teams was South Alabama, which received the invite because it appeared UC Riverside was going to play in the College Basketball Invitational.
Hours later, South Alabama head coach Richie Riley told his team to prepare to play in the NIT, but then got a call from Sun Belt Conference commissioner Keith Gill and NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt, telling Riley they made a mistake and UC Riverside had accepted the NIT bid.
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‘We understand the emotional impact this confusion created,’ Gavitt said in a statement. ‘And we sincerely apologize to South Alabama, head coach Richie Riley and all the student-athletes for the error.’
Riley wasn’t interested in hearing anything about the mistake or the apology.
‘A meaningless apology to the most meaningful group of players I’ve ever coached! What they did to us last night is inexcusable!,’ Riley said on social media. ‘These guys in our locker room don’t deserve this and it’s sad your idea of making it right is a copy and paste apology!’
As for the team that replaced South Alabama in the NIT, UC Riverside, their stay in the tournament was short-lived as they were routed by Santa Clara 101-62 in the first round on Tuesday night.
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