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Date Posted: 13:28:08 02/06/02 Wed
Author: mcgeorge
Subject: Good News For Big West: NIT Expanding

From ESPN website

NEW YORK -- For the past 30 years, the NIT has provided a second chance for college
basketball teams that didn't make the field for the NCAA Tournament.

Now, in a one-year experiment, eight more schools will get the opportunity to extend
their seasons.

The Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association, which runs the preseason and
postseason NITs, said Wednesday the one-year expansion from 32 teams to 40 is in
reaction to repeated requests from around college basketball.

"Conference commissioners, athletic directors and coaches (asked) us to expand our
postseason NIT field to accommodate additional teams who have had successful
seasons in their conference but have failed to receive an invitation to the NCAA
Tournament," NIT executive director John J. Powers said.

The extra berths come a year too late for St. Francis, N.Y., which in 2001 agonizingly
lived the scenario of the type of teams the NIT appears ready to reward.

"It does give coaches at schools our size something else to be hopeful about in case you
win your conference and stub your toe," Terriers coach Ron Ganulin said Wednesday.

The end of St. Francis' 2000-01 season was more like a broken leg.

The top-seeded Terriers led Monmouth 56-36 in the second half of the Northeast
Conference championship game and appeared headed for the first NCAA berth in school
history. Monmouth, however, closed the game with a 31-8 run for a 67-64 victory. St.
Francis' faint hopes for an NIT bid were dashed a few days later.

Under the new NIT format, St. Francis would have had a better shot at extending its
season.

"It would have made a big difference but still not made up for the disappointment of not
going to the NCAA," Ganulin said.

"But that chance to play in a national tournament is a great honor, a great achievement,
and I think the kids would have thought of it like that."

While not guaranteeing that the additional berths would all go to mid-major and lower
Division I programs, Powers said the committee now has a chance to reward teams like
St. Francis, which finished 18-11 last season but didn't have a computer ranking
anywhere near those of teams that finished sixth, seventh or even lower in one of the
power conferences.

"That's the type of group we're looking at with expansion in mind," Powers said. "The
committee feels teams that had outstanding regular seasons should be rewarded in some
manner. Now it will be more open to everybody, especially with those conferences in
mind, and they will be more a part of the formula than in the past."

The NIT -- the field is selected Sunday, March 10 -- will have eight opening-round
games at campus sites on March 12, with the winners advancing to the first round,
which ends March 15.

"The toughest thing will be travel and getting officials around so quickly," Powers said.

Powers said the NIT could have eight or 10 first-round games and produce a few
attractive games for ESPN on the first night. No team would receive a bye in the
40-team field.

The second round is March 18-19, the third round March 20-22, and the semifinals at
New York's Madison Square Garden are March 26. The championship game is March
28.

The NIT started with a six-team field in 1938. It increased slowly over the years, last
expanding in 1980, to 32.

Tulsa won last year's NIT, beating Alabama 79-60 in the championship game.

The NCAA field increased by one to 65 last season because of the addition of a new
conference, forcing a play-in game two days before the first round of the tournament
opens.

The NIT expansion means 105 of the 320 schools playing Division I basketball will play
in the postseason.

"This is a one-year trial," Powers said. "We'll see how it works. There are more teams
moving into Division I and that's something we have to address it."

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