CBI Finds Success, Despite Being Ignored by National Media

Despite being largely ignored by the national media, the College Basketball Invitational (CBI) has enjoyed a successful inaugural run. Bradley visits Tulsa tonight in the first game of a best of three CBI championship series. John Klein describes the somewhat surprising success of the CBI in today's Tulsa World:

"The CBI has been virtually ignored on the national scene, completely overshadowed by the NCAA Tournament and the National Invitation Tournament.

However, in the small pockets of the country where the CBI has kept the basketball season alive, it has been successful."

And Klein speculates about the larger implications of the CBI's success:

"The CBI opens up postseason slots for many of the teams from the mid-majors. Three teams from Conference USA played in the CBI. C-USA landed just one team in the NCAA and one in the NIT.

The power conferences pretty much ignored the CBI.

However, any college athletic administrator is likely to notice the success of the tournament.

If there is money to be made, by expanding the postseason to more teams, it'll probably happen.

Several coaches have said they expect a handful of these postseason tournaments like the CBI to start as early as next season."

Klein continues:

"(T)here's a good chance that the CBI could help usher in the expanded NCAA Tournament.

There is much talk about adding one round to the NCAA Tournament. Instead of 65 teams, the NCAA's would become a 128-team tournament.

The first round NCAA games (64 of them) would be played at home sites.

Here's what would happen. There would be sellouts all across the country, a big step up from the usual half-empty arenas in the current first round, and the top seeds would almost all win.

Still, twice as many coaches could claim they made the NCAA Tournament.