The BYU Men's and Utah Women's basketball teams are in the NIT Final Four. Tonight, Weber State's men's team is playing for the College Insider's Basketball Tournament.
For Weber State, this opportunity would not have happened if it were not for the first 14:40 of the second half at Montana State on January 24. That stretch, where the Bobcats outscored the Wildcats 23-11, was what cost Weber State a chance at the NCAA tournament. Without that brief loss in character, split with Montana, and a higher RPI than the Grizzlies, and the Big Sky Tournament is in Ogden instead of in Missoula. But, to their credit, Weber State never gave up on the season. Since that fateful January trip to the Treasure State, Weber's only loss was in the Big Sky Championship game.
Weber State truly belonged in a higher tournament. Their 26 wins prior to the post-season were the highest of anyone in the NIT, CIT or CBI, except for Louisiana Tech who also had 26 wins. But the NCAA considers the Big Sky Conference a 1-bit league. Only the conference champion gets in, and Montana did what they had to do to qualify. They won the conference championship. True, the Grizzlies did not represent the Big Sky Conference all that well. Montana's 34 points in their second-round game against Syracuse were the lowest point total of any in the round of 64.
But WSU didn't complain, they went to work in the CIT. They beat Cal Poly by 42 points, Air Force by 21 and Oral Roberts by 9. Then they traveled to Cedar Rapids to take Northern Iowa on the road, and earned a nice 3 point victory. Now, they have earned the right to host the championship game against East Carolina, it what will be their first Dee Events Center capacity crowd in a long time. Evening classes have been canceled so that all students can attend. It's a championship. It might be the College Basketball equivalent of the Potato Bowl, but not very many teams in College Basketball get to finish the season with a victory.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention that Weber State has set a Big Sky Conference record for wins and has become the first Big Sky Conference men's team to play a meaningful basketball game in April.
BYU backed into the post-season. The Cougars went 7-7 in their last 14 including their conference tournament. Personally, I believed that their chances of even getting into the NIT were iffy at best. Especially considering there were 10 automatic bids (Regular-season conference champions who lost in their conference tournament) for the NIT. But the Cougars broke out of their funk and handled their three opponents in the tournament so far. Tonight, they get a rematch with Baylor, who beat BYU by 15 in Waco, TX earlier this season.
The season was going well for the Utah Women until December 29 when they lost to North Dakota. After that, there were 5 straight losses to begin the conference season, but all 4 of those teams were ranked at the time the Utes played them. (Utah played Colorado twice in those first 5 games.) The second half of the conference season was a little bit easier for Utah, where they won 6 of 8. They still managed to get into the semi-finals of the PAC-12 tournament. However, 18 wins will not get a PAC-12 team into the NCAA. In the NIT, the Utes have fought and clawed their way to the final-4. They earned an overtime win at Pacific and a 3-point win at St Mary's to get into the NIT final 4 after earning some not-as close wins against Long Beach State and San Diego.
These three teams have already succeeded. They were the ones who did not give up when they did not get into the Big Dance. They kept playing, kept fighting, kept trying. They did not quit. In that respect, they have already won. Here is to taking the lower-tiered tournaments seriously. Here is to not giving up. Here is to playing basketball in April. Good luck to the Wildcats, the Cougars and the Utes tonight.
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