NIT 10: The Second Option
Part IV: Snubbed from the Big Dance, Valparaiso shifts focus to proving NCAA selection committee wrong
Six days had passed since the Valparaiso men’s basketball team fell to Green Bay in the 2016 Horizon League semifinals. The team scattered for the final remaining days of spring break, but players and coaches were back on campus by Selection Sunday.
Unlike previous seasons where Valparaiso had won an automatic berth into the NCAA tournament, the school had no elaborate celebration planned for the bracket reveal. Members of the program gathered inside the Schrage Basketball Wing anxiously awaiting to see if Valpo’s name was called.
CBS made the decision to expand the Selection Show to two hours in 2016. Instead of simply revealing the brackets, a bloated studio show dragged in slow motion while talking about everything but the matchups. The show started at 4:30 p.m. and it was nearly a half hour before the first game was revealed.
The entire bracket wouldn’t be known for more than an hour, but a handful of individuals inside Schrage, as well as anyone who was on Twitter that night, knew pretty quickly that Valparaiso wasn’t going dancing.
NIT 10: An Oral History of Valparaiso’s March to Madison Square Garden
Introduction: The Last Meeting
Part I: The Return of the Mayor
Part II: The Sprint and the Marathon