Once seemingly National Invitation Tournament-bound, the South Alabama men’s basketball team has instead seen its season come to an abrupt end.
The Jaguars (21-11, 13-5 Sun Belt) are coming off their most successful campaign in over a decade. USA won 21 games and shared the Sun Belt regular season league title for the first time since 2008. Although head coach Richie Riley’s squad was eliminated from NCAA Tournament contention after a conference tournament loss to Arkansas State, it briefly seemed as though they had secured a berth to the slightly less prestigious NIT.
Riley told AL.com that “Sun Belt Conference commissioner Keith Gill and NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt called him around 9:30 p.m. Sunday with an invitation to the National Invitation Tournament.”
“I tell them, ‘I’m gonna tell my guys,’” Riley said. “They’re like ‘go ahead.’ So I tell the team.”
But less than two hours later, Gill and Gavitt called Riley back with the news that his program was no longer invited to participate in the tournament. UC Riverside, a school also offered an NIT bid, had originally committed to play in the non-NCAA affiliated College Basketball Invitational. However, UCR was able to get out of its CBI agreement and accept its NIT bid, thus taking USA’s spot.
“This is unacceptable,” Riley told AL.com. “You can’t do that.”
Gavitt and the NIT released a statement Monday morning in the wake of the events:
“After the NIT bracket was released Sunday evening, it was brought to the NIT’s attention that one of the teams scheduled to participate in the tournament had also committed to a non-NCAA affiliated postseason event. In an effort to secure another participating team, the NIT prematurely extended an invitation to the South Alabama Jaguars, prior to learning that the original team chose to accept its invitation to the NIT. Regrettably, the NIT rescinded its invitation to South Alabama. We understand the emotional impact this confusion created, and we sincerely apologize to South Alabama, Head Coach Richie Riley, and all the student-athletes for the error.”
Gill released a statement of his own:
“As the top remaining at-large team not selected to the original field, South Alabama was prematurely contacted by the NIT on Sunday as a potential replacement team to fill out the 32-team bracket. With all 32 teams accepting their NIT invitations, this opportunity did not materialize. We regret the emotional impact this chain of events had on South Alabama’s student-athletes and want to congratulate Sun Belt Coach of the Year Richie Riley and his team on a historic season, including a Sun Belt regular-season co-championship.”
Unsatisfied with Gavitt’s justification, Riley posted a response on social media:
“A meaningless apology to the most meaningful group of players I’ve ever coached! What they did to us last night is inexcusable! 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!”
