The NIT did what?

Good morning! Hope you haven’t submitted your brackets yet. There’s still plenty of news that might affect your picks.

Let's get to Monday’s news.

1. The NIT’s South Alabama gaffe

Late Sunday night, news started to emerge that the NIT and CBI fields might have some issues. Per Taylor Eldridge of the Wichita Eagle, Wichita State and other teams were included in the NIT without any communication, or received mixed messages.

That created some confusion with which schools were in the field, and which ones weren’t. Such as South Alabama. As Kevin Sweeney noted, it got a call at 9:30 pm on Sunday night that it was in the NIT because UC Riverside was already committed to the CBI. An hour later, the NCAA called back and said, “Our mistake. You can’t come.”

Except coach Richie Riley already told his team they’d be going. The NCAA tried some damage control on Monday.

In response, Riley posted this:

“A meaningless apology to the most meaningful group of players I’ve ever coached! What they did to us last night is inexcusable! These guys in our locker room don’t deserve this and it’s sad your idea of making it right is a copy and paste apology!”

Putting together a tournament field isn’t easy, especially when multiple programs pass on participating. In previous years, that wasn’t an issue. Now some power conference teams would rather skip everything.

But this is gonna be a real test that any publicity is good publicity.

2. Region-by-region bracket breakdowns

Wanna start an argument? Debate which NCAA Tournament region is the toughest.

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