[NU Sports] The Big Dance

[Beamsley, Jeff]

Not sure I understand the "earning it" nature of your concern. 

If NU gets an invite, it will be the "right way" - because their body of work was best available at that slot in the opinion of the selection committee.

If NU does get an invite, it will likely be one the last ones issued.    That means that NU will have benefited from an expanded field. It also means that 67 or so teams were considered better than NU.

So what. 

There have been plenty of examples of "last in" teams that made great tourney runs. You trying to say they didn't deserve that opportunity because their season, like NU's, was somehow flawed?

We are all disappointed with this team's failure to seal the deal. Their game against Minny was terrible. But Minny made UoM look terrible for 38 minutes or so too. Tubby Smith is a good coach and showed why at the BT tourney. 

Carmody probably didn't do as much as he could have to teach this team how to win close games, but if they get an invite it will be because of what they DID accomplish with the coach and the players they have - not what they failed to do. 

If they end up with an invite to the NIT, that's fine too.  It will give them another opportunity to get better at closing out close games which can only help next year's starters. 

In either case, they clearly earned whatever post season opportunity  they get by playing better than the teams that are staying home. 

Jeff

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 10, 2012, at 7:27 AM, "Dennis W. Brandt" <tbng at comcast.net> wrote:

>> Sure, we'd like our first NCAA bid to be which has been richly earned. But, speaking reality rather than fantasy, most of us will take a tournament invitation in this lifetime anyway we can get it.
> 
> I have to agree that, to this point, the concept of the Northwestern University basketball team winning its way into the NCAA tournament remains a fantasy.  But I still prefer to wait for the right way to get an invitation - by earning it. 
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