C-USA and the NIT

Unless a team other than Memphis or Southern Mississippi walks off the FedEx Forum floor this Saturday as Conference USA champion the league will only have two representatives in the NCAA Tournament. That would leave four other schools, Tulsa, UCF, UAB, and Marshall fighting for precious few spots in the NIT.

Despite a strong resume Marshall was left out of last years NIT, most likely because of it’s sixth place finish in C-USA’s regular season standings. In fact, only one of the Thundering Herd’s conference mates, UTEP, received an NIT bid in 2011.

For arguments sake lets say C-USA is relegated to one NIT bid again. Below I have listed the tournament resumes of Tulsa, UCF, UAB, and Marshall. To remove any bias this is blind list, each team will be designated by a letter. In your opinion, which school deserves an NIT bid?

*Note, overall record only reflects games against division 1 competition.

Team A
Record: 17-12
RPI: 66
SOS: 30
Vs. RPI top 25: 1-4
Vs. RPI top 50: 2-5
Vs. RPI top 100: 5-9
Best Wins (RPI): Southern Miss (17), Iona (42), Belmont (61)
Worst Losses (RPI): ECU (169), Tulsa (115), UAB (109)
Road / Neutral court record: 5-8

Team B
Record: 19-9
RPI: 64
SOS: 94
Vs. RPI top 25: 1-4
Vs. RPI top 50: 2-5
Vs. RPI top 100: 3-6
Best Wins (RPI): Memphis (18), UCONN (34), Marshall (66)
Worst Losses (RPI): ULL (186), Rice (161), Tulsa (115)
Road / Neutral court record: 5-8

Team C
Record: 17-13
RPI: 115
SOS: 99
Vs. RPI top 25: 0-4
Vs. RPI top 50: 0-5
Vs. RIP top 100: 4-6
Best Wins (RPI): UCF (64), Marshall (66), UT-Arlington (96)
Worst Losses: ASU (248), SMU (207), Houston (199)
Road / Neutral court record: 7-8

Team D
Record: 14-15
RPI: 109
SOS: 48
Vs. RPI top 25: 1-6
Vs. PRI top 50: 1-8
Vs. RPI top 100: 3-11
Best Wins (RPI): Southern Miss (17), MTSU (59), Marshall (66)
Worst Losses (RPI): UT-Martin (326), ECU (169), South Alabama (167)
Road / Neutral court record: 6-8

It should be pretty obvious by now but, team A is Marshall, team B is UCF, team C is Tulsa, and team D is UAB.

You can throw out Tulsa and UAB almost immediately. The Golden Hurricanes have an RPI above 100 and they racked up several bad losses. UAB is in a very precarious position with an overall record of below .500.

What you are left with is two very even teams in UCF and Marshall. So even that both teams hold a win over each other. Marshall does have a superior strength of schedule but, the Knights finish three spots better than the Herd, third, in C-USA.

I don’t see the Thundering Herd jumping over UCF if the NIT only gives C-USA one bid. That could change if MU makes a deeper run than the Knights in this weeks tournament but, Tom Herrion’s group needs to take care of business against SMU and Tulsa.