By Patrick Bohn
Accepting an invitation to play in a national postseason basketball tournament used to be a no-brainer. However, this year, a number of NCAA Division I schools said "no thanks" when offered a chance to extend their seasons. We look at the reasons behind participation decisions.
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While the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament gets most of the publicity at this time of the year, various other tournaments, such as the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) and the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT) are also being played. However, unlike the NCAA Tournament, these lower-tier competitions often come with costs, and some schools are choosing not to attend them as a result
Ball State University was invited to participate in the 16-team CBI, but the costs associated with hosting a string of games proved to be too high for the school.
"They want...to put you in a tournament where the first-round games are $35,000, second-round games are $50,000, third-round games are $75,000," Ball State Athletic Director Tom Collins told the Star Press. "Even though you could ask to go play on the road, at some point when you come back, if you win a couple of those games, you're staring at a pretty big number."
For teams invited to these smaller tournaments, the financial concerns are weighed against the benefits of continuing to play, which may be as simple as giving players one last chance to suit up. The University of Oregon chose to play in the CBI, much to the delight of fifth-year senior Joevan Catron.
"I think it's just great to play in the postseason, regardless of what tournament it is, just having a chance to play, taking advantage of it,'' Catron told the Oregonian.
That reasoning was similar to the line of thinking the University of Hawaii used to decide to play in the CIT, a tournament strictly for mid-majors.
"We wanted to give our seniors, who had never played in a postseason event, an encore and we wanted to thank our fans for their support in hanging in there with the team," Athletic Director Jim Donovan told the Star Advertiser.
Hawaii hosted a pair of games in the tournament, and was responsible for underwriting travel costs for the University of Portland and the University of San Fransisco. But the $125,000 price tag was dwarfed by the $197,097 the school brought in. That figure was aided by the 10,000-plus fans Hawaii drew for the two games.
The Air Force Academy wasn't as lucky. It hosted a first-round CIT game and only drew 1,137 fans. Air Force won the game, but had to pay a $31,500 hosting fee and made only $13,700 in ticket sales, concessions and gift shop sales. Regardless, the school believes the game was worth it.
"From where the program has come over the last two seasons, it was a great reward for our seniors and gave our younger players a taste of something to strive for in the future," Sports Information Director Troy Garnhart told the Gazette. "We definitely felt like it was worth the cost for this season."
Patrick Bohn is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management.