College Basketball Invitational

I go to University of Virginia for graduate school. That's only relevant because in my student e-mail, I got a very proud e-mail from the Athletic Department announcing that the University of Virginia's basketball team was entering the College Basketball Invitational. That prompted a "¿Che?"

I mean, I don't follow college basketball that closely. I watch March Madness because it's an absolute roller coaster of awesomeness. But for the rest of the season, I just don't care (for reasons that I may discuss in a later post). That being said, what the hell is the CBI?

A Google search turned up that it was a new tournament I asked WTP why we needed a new tournament and he said it was for all the good teams that weren't in the top 97 in the country. What was interesting to me though was that it was started by the Gazelle Group, a marketing company.

Because, really, we don't exploit the players enough as it is. We now have to bring in an explicit third party to milk the cash off of these athletes. Besides, do we really need another tournament? I can't think of anyone that watches the NIT that I know of. I mean, sure, your team could be in it, so maybe you'll catch a couple games. But I don't think our need for basketball really is so voracious that we just absolutely need a new tournament to fulfill it.

College Basketball is all about March Madness. Everything else is just a consolation game. That's fine back when you're in youth sports. By the time you're 20-somethings, its time to be able to deal with failure and just accept your season ending if you don't make the tournament. There's no reason to play the consolation games.