Nebraska Basketball: Curing the Post-Selection Sadness

Selection Sunday has come and gone. The Nebraska basketball team has failed to make the postseason for the fourth time in five years. You have been diagnosed with Post-Selection Sadness.

I know it feels pretty brutal having to circle a bunch of other teams that aren’t yours again this year, but you’re not alone. In fact, over two-thirds of all Division I basketball programs fail to make the postseason every year.

Wait, two-thirds of programs don’t play in the postseason? Uh, that seems like a ton considering that number in college football is only one-third.

What gives? Well, there are other tournaments out there, we just don’t hear about them because of the Big Dance stealing the headlines. Meanwhile, the NIT scrapes up what media coverage there is left. Where there are no more media, there is no more money and that means no more room for postseason shenanigans.

Idea! What if you start to change things? The NIT and CBI have offered to let the NCAA use their platform to experiment with some new rules. Maybe that will garner some attention? Still not moving the needle? Fine, let’s create some different kinds of March Madness to distract ourselves.

Post-Selection Therapy Session

Here are my three ingenious options for the expansion of the CBB postseason:

The Rebuilder’s Classic: Take all of the teams that have young rosters that have just been through a brutal rebuilding year and throw them in a tournament. Let ’em build some momentum for next year. No seniors allowed. Oh, and let the redshirts and transfers play.

Mid-Major Versus Power: Take the best of the rest using your statistical ranking of choice, and have the big guys with 14-19 records play the little guys with 20-13 records. Keep track like it’s the ACC vs Big Ten challenge.