There’s talk of going conference-only this college basketball season—eliminating nonconference games, letting leagues figure it out themselves, and then getting in a bunch of huge fights concerning the bubble regardless of what size the prima donna tournament ends up being (I’m assuming the NIT will stay at 32, but if it expands, well, the more the merrier).
One potential big winner?
The American. Er…the AAC. The Faux Big East. Whatever we’re calling it these days.
The conference with Houston, Cincinnati, and Wichita State in it could be in for an NIT boom. It’s already consistently NIT-relevant (it’s put at least one team, and frequently multiple, in the NIT in each season of its existence), but in a conference-only setting, with presumably just three good teams again, there’s a path for a lot of mediocre programs to beat up on East Carolina and make selection committees think they’re better than they are.
Tulsa? Frank Haith was born for this.
Memphis? That guarantee still stands.
SMU? The gaudiest NIT program there ever was.
UCF? Relive the glory days.
USF? Why not.
Temple? Back.
Tulane? Not impossible.
The league has, intentionally or not, been angling towards this moment. Now, it gets to seize it.
Of course, some teams will fall by the wayside, and there’s a sizable chance that this exact scenario is not the one that plays out in the end. But hey, nice to have such a thrilling storyline to hope on.
