Which is better?

I’ll take our current situation any day. This is better for the team in the long run.

From a recruiting standpoint it’s better to make the Tourney. From an experience and practice standpoint it’s better for the younger guys on the team to play a few more games and practice a couple of more weeks because of the NIT. The NIT has given us tournament experience and given our guys a taste of what it’s like to play good competition back to back. The road win in Gainesville is huge for this team’s psyche. They know that they can go into a good OOC team’s house and take their lunch. This NIT run will pay dividends next year! Hopefully they schedule smarter next year. We don’t have to schedule Duke, UNC, UCLA, Texas, Georgetown, and Villanova next year. We just can’t schedule NJIT and their friends.

just because it would make people believe the team at least deserves to be mentioned on the “national” scene. If we go to/win the NIT finals, that would probably be better because then we’d have the added experience, plus the knowledge that we were good enough to win the NIT, we were probably good enough to at least be IN the NCAA (and perhaps even good enough to knock off a team or 2).

But an NCAA bid and loss would be better overall for the team.

So I voted for the NIT run, I’m selfish like that.

everyone wants to make the big dance, not the little one….

make a deep run in the NIT before you are capable of moving forward in the tourny

For this team this year at this point in our program I think this NIT run is perfect. It sucks for Mel, Pringle, and Morrissey, but it’s giving the program great exposure. The road win over Florida is going to open some eyes as is just playing on the court in Madison Square Garden. It will open the eyes of recruits and it will open the eyes of other schools when we go to put together our schedule next year. Teams don’t look at us as an RPI killer anymore so we should be able to get some better competition. And hopefully it has caused Ed and Curley to believe we can compete with that competition.

Arizona is in the Sweet 16 — it’s harder and harder to say we were ‘robbed’ so much as there were just a lot of really competative, good teams on the bubble. The selection comitee seems to have gotten it right.

See 2000 to 2001 — tournament experience paid dividends there and had Jerry Dunn called a timeout against Temple, we might have gone to the Elite 8 in 2001.

We’re in the semis…one game away from the finals, two away from winning the whole thing. You win the NIT, and everyone knows you belonged in the Big Dance. That’s what I believe, anyways.

-Making it to the NIT Final Four doesn’t supplant an NCAA berth and early exit to me. Winning it does. I voted for NCAA Tournament because the way the question was phrased. Talk to me in a week, and I might vote for the NIT.

-Getting on the court at MSG is big. Pitt built their program by recruiting NYC players who got to see them play there every year in the Big East tournament, and getting exposure in that basketball hot bed. While I wouldn’t like making a habit of going to MSG for the NIT Final Four, theres no doubt its a positive step.

-Is it the prospect of getting to the Garden that excites us, or is it this team? Remove the drama of the last couple months from the wins we had, and would we feel differently? What if Penn State beast Illinois and GMU at home by comfortable margins rather than with buzzer beating shots? What if Cornley doesn’t injure himself and still battle through the pain? What I’m getting at is that I think this collection of players might be what gets us excited, rather than the results. I love this team as much as I’ve loved any team I’ve ever rooted for because of its character. They’re galvanizing, and I think its possible that they, more than their success on the court, is what is driving the excitement behind the team to the point that people are treating the NIT Final Four like a bowl game. The players are the ones that have brought us together, not their results.

-I still feel like we took an NCAA bid away from ourselves, and the kool-aid and excitement of the last few games hasn’t changed that. Its easy to say “We might have lost big, and no one wants that”, but look at the draw Arizona got, which, had we played at decent schedule, could have been us. Utah, then Cleveland St for a chance to go to the Sweet 16? I think we could have handled that. Fire Curley.

but i know what’s best.

To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

kind of like what our team is going to lay down on notre dame.