Although it was more muted than some other years, there was still carping from some schools whose basketball team didn’t get chosen for the NCAA tournament that ultimately decides the national champion.
Florida for one had no case and didn’t attempt to make one. It didn’t deserve to be one of the 65. But some others in its conference, the Southeast, complained. The SEC only had three invitees.
Put it this way. You’re not the best team in your conference. Or the next-to-best. Or the next-to-the-next-to-the best. How deserving are you of going to anything that purports to crown a national champion? That’s why there’s an NIT.
Actually, the unheralded, lesser likes of Chattanooga and Radford, who actually had to win something to get in, embody an indispensable part of “March madness.” These are the contemporary Hoosiers, the non-marquee schools that get to play their given-day-anything-can-happen, David cards against the usual hoops Goliaths.