It isn’t easy to repeat as NIT champions. Only two teams have ever done it, compared to something like thirteen for a certain lesser postseason men’s college basketball tournament. This adds up. If it’s hard to make a tournament, it’s hard to win it, and qualifying for the NIT is no easy task. In fact, qualifying is so difficult that just two games into the season, the defending champions already look at risk of missing the field entirely.
On Saturday afternoon, Shaka Smart’s Texas Longhorns, the reigning national champions, paid a visit to West Lafayette. It’s the type of game teams include in their schedules to bolster their NIT chances: a straightforward affair in which a high-quality opponent on the road boosts one’s strength of schedule without risking a notable victory.
Or so Texas thought.
It turns out Purdue had other plans.
In an exciting game, Purdue managed to sneak off with a home loss, leaving Texas victorious, holding now-fragile NIT chances in their hands.
Texas still has hope, of course. Their remaining nonconference schedule is strong, and the Big 12 is tough enough that they could wind their way in the way they did last year, which was finishing with a .500 record despite clearly being one of the thirty or forty best teams in the country. They could also pick up some steam if Purdue puts together an NIT bid of their own. That, though, is unlikely: Purdue hasn’t made an NIT in 16 years, and in twelve of those seasons, they overshot, finishing above the upper cut line. Assuming they continue this trend, Saturday’s will be a nice road victory for Texas—one the Longhorns surely don’t want.
Next up for the Longhorns is a visit from Cal Baptist. The calculations on these games are tough—lose too many of them and one finds oneself clawing to stay above the lower cut line. Still, the Longhorns would probably do well to lose this, just to reset things.
