Will the second time around the CBI be better for the Dutchmen?

Don't make me regret gorging on the CBI again, Dutchmen!!!

All you need to do is take one look at my waistline to know I lack willpower. But my resistance is just as poor away from the dinner table too, as evidenced this week when I embraced the idea of playing in the CBI with the type of enthusiasm I usually reserve only for a dinner of chicken parm and Carvel cake. (But honey I’m almost HALFWAY to my birthday!)

I did this last year, too, and on The Morning After felt so awful and so bloated and so regretful I swore I’d never do it again, and asked my loyal readers to smack me upside the head (figuratively speaking) if I started pining for a non-NIT bid at any point in the future.

Which, of course, I started doing about as soon as the Flying Dutchmen lost to Old Dominion in the CAA semifinals. My thinking, even before the NIT field filled up with mid-major regular season champions that lost in their conference tournaments, was that I’d rather see the Dutchmen have a shot at hosting (and winning) a few games at home and maybe even win the whole thing in the CBI or CIT rather than have to fly to some BCS school and put up with BCS Bias and, probably, lose a first-round game.

Who didn’t love the idea of watching the Dutchmen a few more times? And who among us doesn’t love the idea of Charles Jenkins winning his very last collegiate game?

Alas, now that the postseason is here and Hofstra is once again in the CBI, I find myself hoping I’m not sitting here, a couple hours or a few days from now, wishing I hadn’t gotten what I’d hoped for.

Part of it is the urgency of the postseason. One more loss and it is really, truly, finally all over for Jenkins, Greg Washington and Brad Kelleher. One more loss and we have to start gazing at the calendar and willing October to get here. The senses and nerves are heightened, the margin for error officially gone. Now that what we wanted is here, we’re nervous. Makes sense.

We’re also nervous because the Dutchmen will hit the road for at least the first round (and likely the second, if they get that far) and will tip off in Evansville tonight a mere 44 or so hours after they found out their destination, barely 24 hours after flying out of New York and less than 18 hours after bussing (yes, bussing) to Evansville from Nashville. That’s a lot of traveling and not a whole lot of preparation in a short period of time, but Mo Cassara said yesterday he was confident the Dutchmen could rely today and tonight on the lessons they learned during this season’s challenging road trips.

“I think so much of today and really into tonight and traveling is more about us getting our mental frame of mind kind of in line,” Cassara said. “It’s much more about us, about our energy and our overall effort and our attitude and then our execution.

“I think as disappointing as the result was at Wright State, it’s a good learning tool for this trip. Another challenging trip to the Midwest against a very hard-nosed, tough Evansville team. In Wright State we know we didn’t play very well and we weren’t as prepared as we thought, so we can use that as a measuring stick going out to Evansville.”

Also a cause for concern: That the disappointment over missing the NIT will impact the Dutchmen once they get on to the court of the played-in-obscurity-at-a-Division-II gym CBI. That disappointment—among fans and, particularly, the players and staff—was higher than I expected. I think most of us were resigned to missing the NIT, but VCU squeezing into the field gave us all hope, however short-sustained, that the NIT couldn’t possibly fail to invite the highest non-NCAA Tournament qualifier in a great mid-major. Nope. It’s the NCAA. It can screw up anything. (This is the first time since 2000 the CAA has not sent a team to the NIT, by the way)

Cassara was as unhappy as anyone that the Dutchmen didn’t get an NIT invite, but during a 20-minute meeting yesterday he reminded the Dutchmen to take—warning! pun ahead!—pride over how far they have come in five months and in the opportunity to keep playing, both for themselves and for the graduating seniors as well as the university.

“I wrote two dates on the board: One was Oct. 15, the other was today,” Cassara said. “And I drew a line in between. I said ‘Think of this journey, going from this date to that date.’ I think, if we said on the first date that we’d be 21-11 and finish tied for second in the CAA and playing in the postseason, we’d be pretty happy. So let’s go play our butts off and have some fun, because we deserve to be in this position for all the hard work we put in along this journey.”

For whatever reason, the Dutchmen did not seem happy to be there a year ago tomorrow night, when IUPUI never trailed in a 74-60 rout. Those memories are hard to shake for the 27 of us who were in the stands and who walked out figuring it would have been better to put away the basketballs after a frantic rally in the second half of the season ended with the double overtime loss to Northeastern in the CAA quarterfinals.

But this Dutchmen team is far more deserving of postseason play than a year ago, when Hofstra had the fourth-lowest RPI of anyone in the CBI and the seventh-lowest of the 31 teams that received at-large bids to the CBI or CIT. This year, the Dutchmen have the second-highest RPI of anyone in the CBI, behind only Central Florida.

In addition, Jenkins, Washington and Kelleher remember how last year ended—though only Jenkins played in the game, Washington was out with an ankle injury and Kelleher was in NCAA purgatory—and don’t want history to repeat itself.

“I talked to Charles and to Greg about the postseason experience from last year and obviously it wasn’t one that they like to talk about or are real proud of,” Cassara said. “I said ‘Let’s not make that happen again.’ As I say all the time: If we do what we’re supposed to do and execute our game plan and have the right mental approach and play hard, winning will take care of itself.”

The Dutchmen’s “Why not us?” mantra didn’t translate into the CAA title that everyone so desperately wanted, but it could work here, even “Why not us?” doesn’t resonate quite as well in the CBI. There’s 140 teams participating in postseason basketball and only four will win their last game. Why can’t the Dutchmen be one of those, make this CBI experience as pleasant and as last year’s was disastrous and give the program a building block for years to come?

“We’re pretty upset we didn’t get a bid to the NIT, but we’ve got our second wind,” Kelleher said. “We really want to go out and win this tournament…look at VCU last year: They won this thing and now they’re in the NCAAs.”

“The seniors, I told them it’s their last tournament and last go-around, play as hard as you can and give everything you can to this team and to the program,” Cassara said. “Because I think [their] effort and attitude will help move this program forward. And hopefully we’re playing in the postseason in a different tournament in years to come.”

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

CBI Bits and Bytes: Whose season gets Scrubbed tonight?

Denise the hot intern, above, smiles despite preparing to deliver bad news to her castmates as well as one of the two teams playing tonight at Hofstra Arena.

Tom Pecora couldn’t stop yawning in his office Monday afternoon, and for once it wasn’t I was boring him to tears.

Neither Pecora nor his staff got much sleep Sunday night as they awaited word on whether or not the Flying Dutchmen’s season would continue. The news that the Dutchmen were headed for the CBI and a home game tonight against IUPUI finally arrived around midnight, which set into motion a chain of events that had Pecora and his assistants and his staff spending all day Monday embarking on a crash course of all things IUPUI (well, not all things, we took care of that this morning!).

“What we did last night was we had two guys waiting at Hoop One Video [in New Jersey]—they were sitting in the car, two of our managers,” Pecora said. “As soon as we knew it was IUPUI, we called them at midnight. They got us three tapes and they drove back, got back here about two o’clock.

“Coach [David] Duke was sleeping here. He got up and started watching tape at six. And then I got here at eight and I started watching.”

Pecora said the plan was to produce a scouting report for the Dutchmen in time for practice Tuesday. “So for the kids, it’s business as usual,” Pecora said. “We’re usually ahead of the curve a little bit more.”

—Hofstra and IUPUI have never played each other and IUPUI has played just two CAA opponents in its 13 seasons as a Division I program. The closest connection Hofstra has to IUPUI is a thin one indeed: IUPUI plays in the Summit League, which used to be known as the Mid-Continent Conference, which in turn took in the rest of the old East Coast Conference (Buffalo, Central Connecticut, Chicago State, Northeastern Illinois and Troy State) after the ECC finally broke apart for good in 1994.

Yet is anyone surprised that Pecora, who seems to know and get along with everyone in Division I (well, except this guy), is friends with IUPUI coach Ron Hunter and exchanged texts with him late Sunday night?

Pecora and Hunter have worked together on CBS College Sports’ coverage of the NCAA Tournament and will do so again this weekend. “He texted me ‘Wow, what are the chances of us playing? Now I’ll have to buy you dinner,’” Pecora said, “Because I usually buy him dinner when he comes in to do the TV work. My response was ‘Laughed when I heard. I’ll pick you up Friday morning.’”

Judging by Hunter’s biography on the IUPUI website—which states, in part, “…Hunter has made strong defense, excellent guard play and local recruiting three of his fortes”—he and Pecora have plenty in common on the court, as well.

“I think it’s the same mid-major philosophy that you can get better guards than you can get forwards, so go out and try to play a three guard offense and you’re going to have better players on the floor,” Pecora said.

—Maybe the NCAA Tournament doesn’t take into account how a team fares in its last five or 10 games (snort), but the CBI does.

“It obviously played a role, there’s no doubt about that,” CBI spokesman Ray Cella said Monday of the impact of the Flying Dutchmen’s 8-2 finish. “That’s one of the things that everybody looks at, is the last five or last 10. They don’t admit it anymore, but they still do.”

Like with the CIT, Cella said the CBI is particularly interested in teams such as the Dutchmen, who have a young core returning next year and are eager to continue their season. “Obviously, the fact that they are a young team—even getting in two or three more practices can be helpful,” Cella said. “If they win their game on Wednesday and they continue to play, obviously, not only does it give you more opportunities to be with the kids and [work on] what you need to work on, it also gives you a sense of what the postseason is about and to try to use that to leapfrog into the following season.

“Tulsa won the first year and then was able to parlay that into the last two years [an NCAA Tournament berth last year and an NIT appearance this year]. UTEP last year, look at the year they had. Any chance you get to keep playing, keep practicing and get a game environment is going to help you, especially if you’re a young team.”

—I’m probably the only person who finds the CBI and CIT analogous to Scrubs (yes, I can in fact tie anything at all into the show created by William & Mary graduate Bill Lawrence). Allow me to explain: Scrubs has been revived from the edge of cancellation numerous times. The CBI and CIT allow teams to extend a season that seemed finished after a loss in their conference tournaments. Not bad, right?

Anyway, Scrubs is probably airing its last LAST episode tonight, right in the middle of the Dutchmen’s game against IUPUI. Someone’s season will finally be cancelled tonight as well in an enticing matchup of strengths.

Hofstra ranks among the nation’s leaders in 3-point field goal percentage defense, IUPUI shoots almost 40 percent (39.2 percent) from beyond the arc. The Dutchmen pride (booooo) themselves on limiting teams to less than 40 percent shooting, the Jaguars shoot 51.1 percent, second-best in the country behind Syracuse. It took Tom Pecora until almost February to find a starting five that gelled, IUPUI has used the same starting five in every game this season.

The Jaguars’ three double-digit scorers (Robert Glenn, Alex Young and Leroy Nobles) are all 6-foot-5 or taller, which could present some matchup problems for the Dutchmen. Greg Washington and Miklos Szabo must stay out of foul trouble, particularly early in the first half, and Nathaniel Lester will have to emerge from the doghouse to put in some time at power forward.

If one of the Jags’ trio is held under 10 points, the Dutchmen should win. If not, the race to see whose season gets Scrubbed will go right to the wire and be too close to call. Either way, see you there. I’ll be the guy screaming how the Fordham, Seton Hall and St. John’s jobs are career suicide.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

Defiantly Dutch Q&A: Jack Hayes on the CBI

We spoke Monday afternoon with Hofstra athletic director Jack Hayes, who gave a glimpse at how the school decided to pursue a bid to the CBI or CIT and how it landed a CBI home game Wednesday as well as the logistics of planning such an event and trying to generate interest in it among fans. Hope you enjoy the interview and we thank Jack for taking the time to speak with us during a busy day at the school.

Describe the process by which Hofstra ended up in the CBI. Did you begin pursuing these bids when you were eliminated from the CAA Tournament?

It pretty much started in the last couple weeks. We took a different approach than last year. Last year, we had six seniors on the team. We were 21-11 at this point last year, but with six seniors we just made the decision early on that if we were invited to the NCAA or the NIT we would accept the bid and be thrilled about it. And if not, that was going to be the end of our season. As you know, this time around, the makeup of our team is entirely different. Five of the top seven players, in terms of minutes, are people that would be coming back next year. When you have a team that’s going to return the Player of the Year in the conference, a member of the all-defensive team and two members of the all-rookie team, we felt like ‘Let’s continue to play as long as we can.’ And in conversations with the CBI and the CIT, we communicated to them that we would be interested in playing if we were invited.

Was there a point Sunday night where it became clear that the CBI was a more likely destination than the CIT?

I think we did get to the point, when it seemed like we would be invited to the CBI, that we let both groups know. We let both groups know where we were in this all along.

Throughout the process, were you feeling pretty good about getting an invite to one of the tournaments?

I think we did. They ask you what your availability is in terms of being able to travel, is your building available for home games, that type of thing. What happens in these tournaments—I’m sure you’ve seen it already in the Illinois-Stony Brook game—is that once you get into mid-March, a lot of schools’ facilities are being used for other things. And so you end up with schools that can be in it, schools that can be in it but can’t play at home. You have those conversations with the NIT, with the CBI, with the CIT. But we felt all along in those conversations about our team, about our ability to play home or away, we felt like there would be a likelihood that we’d get the phone call.

What made you decide to bid on a home game?

One thing was we knew that next week, our building was not available, which is in rounds two and three. So we discussed that [and how] we would be able to host in the first round, but if we were fortunate enough to advance, that we would not be able to. I don’t think that played a role in whether or not we were invited to the tournament. They probably sit there and say ‘If Hofstra were to participate and they don’t play at home in the first round, then they actually have no opportunity to play at home.’ So I think that may have factored into it, that we were able to host a first round game but not a second or third round game.

Reports the first two years had schools paying $60,000 to host a game. Can you say what the fee was for Hofstra?

They asked us not to. I’m sure they ran into problems there, maybe a year ago, with how they did that, so they asked us not to comment.

What is preparing for a tournament like this like from a logistical point of view?

You’ve got to be prepared for it already hoping that you get the bid, which you do every year if you’re in a position to participate in postseason play. By the time Sunday comes, you have to have the ticket office up to speed, you have to have the facilities schedule known, because you can imagine on Tuesday, IUPUI’s going to have to practice here. They don’t have to, but you have to give them the opportunity if they’d like to do so. Practice schedule to ticket information to information on the website [all has to be released].

The two preseason NIT games Hofstra hosted, neither of which could be listed on the schedule that was issued in October, didn’t draw very well at all. What are you planning to do to let people know about the CBI and to let them know there’s a basketball game at Hofstra Wednesday night?

There are some things in the preseason NIT that [limit] you—the prices are set at the beginning and group ticket discounts and student tickets and discounted tickets are not permitted. We’ve got a little bit more flexibility [with the CBI]. So even though we don’t have a significant amount of time in terms of from the announcement to when the game is played, some of those things we have already prepared for. We were able to put things up on the website and send information by email to season ticket holders, which does make it easier. Believe me, we have been thinking about the preseason NIT as we’ve been making some of these decisions in the last few days.

After Hofstra chose not to play in the CBI or CIT bid last year, you and Tom Pecora sent a letter to season ticket holders explaining the decision. Did the negative fan reaction play a factor in this year’s decision?

Two things: One, the most important, was the makeup of our team with six seniors. It didn’t really make sense for us to do this. The second piece was, as we started to move closer to the end of the season this year, we did get feedback from other teams that participated in these events. As you know, Northeastern participated in these types of events. Old Dominion has. So we’ve been on the phone with the schools that were in the [tournaments]. It was those two reasons, the primary one being the makeup of our team.

Hofstra fielded a good amount of criticism after the football program was terminated. President Rabinowitz said in announcing the decision that there were no plans to eliminate any other sports and that the school would continue to invest in its athletic program. With that in mind, what kind of message do you think hosting a CBI game, as well as the news last week that Hofstra will host the 2011 Division I lacrosse quarterfinals, sends to fans, alumni and athletes?

Anytime that you can bring national events to your campus, it’s a positive. Ultimately, what this is about is providing our team an opportunity to continue to play, and I don’t know why anyone would not think that’s a positive. If we can give the members of our team an opportunity to play in a tournament that has meaning, then we should consider it. So we were excited to do it. We’re certainly excited about that announcement last week and excited about this as well. The turnaround time does make it a little bit of a challenge, but it is what it is. I think there’s schools out there that would like the opportunity to be playing in a basketball game Wednesday, and so we’re grateful that we have that opportunity.

We want to be successful. We want to strive to be as strong an athletic program as we can.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

So like I was saying all along, Hofstra is headed for the CBI

Remember all that stuff I wrote about the CIT? Forget about it! It was announced just after midnight today that Hofstra will participate in the College Basketball Invitational and will host something called an IUPUI (that bit of New York snobbery is for Twitter friend turned foe RedZoneIUPUI) Wednesday at 7 p.m. If the Flying Dutchmen win, they’ll then host a quarterfinal game a week from today.

All trash-talking aside, don’t sleep on IUPUI, which will arrive in Hempstead with quite the resume—the Jaguars finished second in the Summit League with a 15-3 record, lost to Oakland in the championship game of the Summit tournament and were 83rd in the NCAA’s RPI rankings Sunday). We’ll have plenty more on IUPUI and the CBI over the next couple days, but first, let’s chew on the pleasant and delicious surprise that is this appearance in the CBI.

As evidenced by my CIT stories and musings the last few days, I never expected Hofstra to make the financial commitment required by the CBI, which charges host teams $60,000 per game. Nor would I have blamed the school for choosing not to do so.

There is a chance Hofstra negotiated a lower price—Wisconsin-Green Bay didn’t pay to host a game last season in exchange for agreeing to play in a pre-season tournament run by the Gazelle Group, which also operates the CBI—but regardless, the school should be commended for making an investment in the men’s basketball program by committing to at least two home games. (Yes, I am lauding both Hofstra and George Mason in the same week, I do in fact feel woozy)

If Hofstra paid the full fee, then it all but assured this CBI run—no matter how long it lasts—will operate in the red. The top ticket price is $10 ($5 cheaper than the top price for a regular season game) meaning even a sellout wouldn’t recoup the school’s initial investment.

This morning’s news comes six days after the NCAA announced Hofstra won the right to host the men’s lacrosse quarterfinals in 2011 and is consistent with the message delivered the day football was killed: No other programs are in danger and every effort will be made to get them to succeed at a national level. Nothing will ever excuse the surreptitious assassination of football, but at least the powers that be are living up to their word by displaying support for the remaining sports.

You can bet the basketball staff is thrilled with this investment as well with the message it sends to conferences present and, perhaps, future as well. The CAA is sending six schools to a postseason tournament, most of any true mid-major league. The Atlantic 10 is sending eight schools to a tournament and has the most schools in the CBI (three). Interesting, yes?

Also worth noting: If Hofstra reaches the semifinals of the CBI, it will have to postpone the basketball banquet, currently scheduled for next Wednesday.

You, too, deserve credit for getting Hofstra into the CBI. The school was surprised by the negative reaction to its declining to participate in either the CBI or CIT last year, so much so that Jack Hayes and Tom Pecora sent out an email explaining the decision to season ticket holders and Pride Club members. We all know how much Hofstra hates bad publicity, so what better way to fix the damage from last season than by playing multiple home games in one of these tournaments this year?

And the most fascinating part of Hofstra participating in the CBI? It further fuels the rivalry with Stony Brook. Hours before Hofstra’s home game was finalized, the NIT pairings were released with eighth-seeded Stony Brook hosting a game against top-seeded Illinois because of a conflict at Illinois’ arena. Stony Brook AD and Hofstra alum Jim Fiore told Newsday last night that the school made $75,000 in emergency repairs to make Stony Brook Arena—which was supposed to be renovated until the economy collapsed—inhabitable for an America East title game or NIT home game.

Maybe Hofstra hosting a CBI game at the exact same time Stony Brook is hosting an NIT game is coincidence. But given how the Cold War between the schools is beginning to make the mid-‘80s relations between Russia and the United States look warm in comparison, I doubt it. Who knew a berth in the CBI could be so much fun?

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

In which I provide my long-overdue and long-winded take on the CIT bid, or lack thereof (Or: Feel Like A Number)

Who knows? Maybe the Flying Dutchmen would have gone all the way with the CIT.

Greetings from Connecticut, where I offer you a joke that’s two weeks old but still relevant (to me, anyway): If aliens land in the Nutmeg State while Jim Calhoun is in the hospital, does anyone get a free anal probing?

You should have seen the coverage afforded Calhoun’s absence from UConn’s first-round game against Chattanooga (and can you imagine how badly the Huskies would have destroyed the Mocs if Calhoun was healthy?). The late-night news was led by some talking head yapping about Calhoun while standing in front of the UConn medical center…which, you know, was several hundred miles away FROM WHERE CALHOUN WAS HOSPITALIZED.

Then some vapid sports anchor said Calhoun would probably be glad to trade a day in the hospital in exchange for a tournament win. Oh really? The guy’s had cancer three times. I can’t imagine he wanted to kick back in the hospital. And why would someone whose Huskies squads are 14-1 in first-round games feel the need to sacrifice his health for a Round of 64 victory? Sheesh.

You’ll have to forgive me for getting equal parts angry and nostalgic. After all, the day Calhoun was hospitalized was also the day the CAA basketball season ended. VCU lost to UCLA that night in the semifinals of the Jay Wright Invitational.

(Parenthetical tangent: When do you think Jay realized he wasn’t at Hofstra anymore? When he was able to swap disgusting, overly greasy slices of pizza from Campus Pizza for authentic cheese steaks? When he realized his contract had a perk beyond a car? Or when he got two freaking home games to open the NCAA Tournament? Winning 18 in a row and getting a 13 seed must feel like a long, long time ago.)

Anyway, a night before Eric Maynor missed the last shot of his collegiate career (isn’t that ironic, in that it’s not ironic at all), George Mason continued to pay for its 2006 deal with the devil when Penn State hit a miracle shot to force overtime in a first-round NIT game. The Nittany Lions went on to win the game, and then won four more to win the NIT. Haha Mason. Too bad.

So that was it for the CAA in 2008-09. Thanks for playing, drive home safely. Too bad mid-major teams couldn’t participate in a third or fourth tournament. It would be nice if a young, promising squad had another opportunity to play and an opportunity to compete for a championship, no matter how piddly it may appear to others, and some nice hats and T-shirts.

Too bad there’s…not…something…like…that.

Apparently, there WAS something like that. Multiple somethings like that, even, in which CAA rivals Old Dominion, James Madison and Northeastern participated. Not only that, but ODU won the newer tournament, the CollegeInsider.com Tournament, and got to the championship game by beating JMU in the semis. Northeastern, meanwhile, won a game in the College Basketball Invitational, which is in its second year.

But participating in one of these fledgling tournaments didn’t appeal to Hofstra, even though the team, by any measure, deserved a chance to play in the expanded postseason. The Dutchmen won 21 games (20 against Division I foes). They went 4-2 against the CAA’s CBI/CIT trio (that’s gotta be a record for most acronyms in a single breath). The Dutchmen finished in much stronger fashion (5-2 in their last seven CAA games, including the tourney) than either Northeastern or JMU, both of which went 2-5 over that span.

Yet the decision-makers at Hofstra apparently figured nobody would notice when the Dutchmen “elected” to stay home. When people did notice—the thread on CBI/CIT pairings reached five pages, only the ninth thread to go that long since August 2006, the things I do for you—a letter was sent to Pride Club members explaining that the Dutchmen did not want to play in anything other than the NCAA or NIT. That, in turn, inspired another long thread.

I get turning down a CBI bid. Any tournament that offers a bid and a home game to anyone willing to pony up $60,000 for the right to host, no matter how poor the bidder’s record, is a joke. Of course, Oregon State is in the best-of-three title series (another joke…seriously, single-elimination has been perfect for nearly seven decades, but NOW we need a best-of-three series to determine a champion?), so there you go. Hey, has anyone noted the Beavers’ coach bears an uncanny resemblance to Michelle Obama?

But the CIT was a perfect spot for Hofstra. And let’s be honest: Hofstra turning down a fledgling tournament is a lot like me turning down a reasonably attractive prom date in 1991 because she was the new kid in town.

Sure, there’d be some risk involved. She might have bad teeth and bad breath. She might have a hideous voice and a worse laugh. She might hate various races and religions as well as dentists. I might spend the entire night praying for the clock to move.

Or, you know, she could end up a more aggressive Andrea Zuckerman, or she might want to talk about that one time at band camp, or she might want to recreate Meat Loaf’s “Paradise By The Dashboard Light,” sans all that forever stuff.

You take the chance, and maybe you get smoked in the first round. Or maybe you’re the ones holding aloft the CIT trophy.

And let’s be honest here, too: Who is Hofstra—a program that owns two postseason victories at the Division I level—to turn down the CIT?

Playing in the CIT wasn’t beneath Drake, which reached the NCAA Tournament last year, or Bradley, which has won the NIT four times, reached the NCAA Final Four twice and lost in the finals of the first CBI. It wasn’t beneath Old Dominion, which made the NCAA Tournament twice and the NIT Final Four once between 2005-07, played in last year’s inaugural CBI and was ecstatic to win the CIT.

Maybe Hofstra didn’t feel beneath the tournament at all. Maybe, once again, this was all about the nickels and the dimes.

It cost teams a reported $28,000 to host a CIT game. The administration was probably worried about making back its investment, given the minimal attention paid to the CIT, but couldn’t the school have accepted a road game in the first round and hoped a victory would build a little bit of momentum and interest for a quarterfinal game at the Arena?

Old Dominion drew less than 3,000 fans to each of its three home CIT games. But is it so difficult to believe Hofstra could not have drawn 2,000 fans at $15 a pop? Hell, 1,500 fans at $15 a pop is $22,500, and I’m confident Hofstra could net $5,500 in concessions and what not.

Here’s what rankles me when we get to the nickels and the dimes: Men’s basketball is The Sport at Hofstra. (just ahead of men’s lacrosse—oh, and let’s get this out of the way right now: Football fans, I’m actually quite fond of you and the sport and the team, but if you want to insist otherwise, the email address is defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.)

The men’s basketball program makes money. It gets the most press, traditional and otherwise. It performs well on the court and does not embarrass the University off it. It has a coach who embraces his role as a spokesman for the University and is willing to kiss as many babies and conduct as many grip-and-grins as needed in order to spread the gospel.

So it looks bad, for the school as well as the CAA, when the University refuses to participate in a postseason tournament. Men’s basketball sure as hell is not The Sport at Northeastern, where the Huskies play their home games in a hockey arena that looks and feels a lot a 19th-century theatre. Yet the administration there thought enough of the program to send it out west for a pair of games in the CBI and to risk a potential home game if the Huskies got any farther.

I don’t think men’s hoops is The Sport at James Madison, where the football team was ranked no. 1 for most of last season. But the administration recognized the value of rewarding a team that exceeded all expectations by having its best season in a decade

The Flying Dutchmen were one of only seven 20-win teams that failed to participate in a postseason tournament. Only one of those other schools (Wright State of the Horizon) came from a conference ranked above the CAA by Ken Pomeroy. The others came from the Sun Belt, Southland and Big South. Not exactly the company the CAA wants to keep.

Tom Pecora has laughably come under fire for the Dutchmen passing on the CIT. Some fans think the Dutchmen turned the bid down because he wanted to hang on to his analyst gig with CBS College Sports Network. That’s hilarious. You think Pecora’s desire to get some face time on a network nobody gets trumps his competitive desires? He’s got a team that’s primed to peak over the next two years and he’d rather talk about the NCAA Tournament instead of get the Dutchmen some more experience? Please.

Some believe that Pecora hinted during an interview on WRHU that one reason the school turned a bid down was the lackluster performance of the seniors. I haven’t heard the interview so I have no idea if that’s true or not, but even if it is, so what? The CIT wouldn’t be about one more lap around the track for Darren Townes or Arminas Urbutis.

It’d be about getting some more postseason experience for the underclassmen—just like ODU (one senior on its roster), JMU (two seniors) and Northeastern (three seniors) did for their underclassmen-dominated teams and just like Pecora wanted to back in February.

“I think it’s a good thing if you do have a young team, like us,” Pecora told the New York Daily News’ Sean Brennan in early February. “We have a core of three sophomores (Charles Jenkins, Greg Washington and Nathaniel Lester) , so why wouldn’t I want to play more games and get my guys more experience?”

Pecora co-signed that letter to Pride Club members, but don’t kid yourself. He’s a smart man, and he knows there’s no arguing with the bosses when it comes to the nickels and the dimes. This decision came from the top and is a big giant insult—to the players as much as it is to the fans.

Maybe it’s a good life lesson for the players. From here on out, you are nothing more than figures on the bottom line to the people for whom you perform. You can exceed expectations, perform your best at crunch time and still get nothing.

The rest of us are used to feeling like a number. Over the last five years, ticket prices at the Arena have more than doubled. In 2003-04, you could get premium season tickets, the Pride Club discount and membership in the Pride Club for $116. Today, that same trio costs you a cool $246. But you get 25 percent off a maximum of four season tickets with a $100 donation!

Yet the administration that thought nothing of dramatically hiking your ticket prices now doesn’t think it’s worth paying $28,000 to reward you with a postseason tournament game. Too bad. I bet it would have been easier to sell re-seating and another price hike if the Flying Dutchmen actually won the CIT.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com. And join the Defiantly Dutch group at Facebook today!

Explaining our absence...and see you in the CIT?

Just wanted to inform the Loyal Readers (all eight of you!) that this will probably be the last post for at least a few days due to a death in the family. We’ll be back to some semblance of regular posting as soon as we can and humbly request you check in on us when you get a chance.

As for the Flying Dutchmen’s postseason hopes, my guess is they won’t profit from the uncanny success of the Chalke in the mid-majors (only five regular season champs have fallen in their postseason tourneys, with Stephen F. Austin still to play in the Southland finale today; eight regular season champs lost their tourneys and earned automatic bids to the NIT each of the last two years) and earn a bid to the NIT, though you can never rule out the tournament wanting a New York presence.

The tea leaves indicate the Dutchmen won’t host a game in the CBI or CIT, since there’s been no announcement of ticket sales by the school. Hard to blame them for not wanting to fork over $60,000 for a home game in the CBI or $28,000 for a home game in the CIT, especially with the economy in the crapper and most average fans having no idea these tourneys exist. But I think the Dutchmen are deserving of hosting a CIT game, perhaps against Rider, and that they’d have a decent shot at drawing the 2,500 or so fans necessary to make back the fee.

My prediction: The Dutchmen make the CIT and visit Seton Hall. Unbelievably (and I say that with admiration), someone has come up with a site projecting the CIT field. I wish I’d thought of that. That site has the Dutchmen headed for a three seed in the 16-team tournament and a potential game against either high-scoring VMI or regular NIT foe Saint Joseph’s.

Regardless, hopefully we’ll have another game (or two, or three, or four) this season to recap at some point.

Oh, and if Mason makes the NCAA, it’ll confirm every conspiracy theory I’ve ever had about anything and assure that my return post will be X-rated. See you soon.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com. And join the Defiantly Dutch group at Facebook today!