Barring an about-face by the NIT selection committee, Georgia Tech’s season is over. The school won’t accept an invitation to the College Basketball Invitational, acting athletic director Paul Griffin said Friday.
With Tech appearing to have played itself out of NIT contention with back-to-back losses to Boston College, the CBI stood as the only viable option to continue the season. After the 84-64 loss to the Eagles on Thursday in the first round of the ACC tournament, players said they wanted to keep the season going. They’ll have to wait until November, while seniors Mfon Udofia and Pierre Jordan have played their last for the Yellow Jackets.
“We participate either in the NCAA or in the NIT, not in any other privately owned or run tournaments,” Griffin said, referring to the CBI and the collegeinsider.com tournaments, both relatively new events that take the leftovers from the NIT.
No ACC team has played in the CBI since Virginia participated in 2008, the tournament’s first season. Since then, teams from other BCS conferences, mostly from the Pac-12, have played, but the tournament mostly has been the domain of mid-major teams.
On Tuesday, NIT selection committee chair C.M. Newton said of the Jackets that “at the very best, they’d be a bubble team with us,” which was before Tech’s 20-point loss to Boston College.
