Snubbed St. John's, OU, Pitt decline invites to NIT

Dreams die hard, particularly in March.

The Big East found that out Sunday as three 20-win teams — Providence, Seton Hall and St. John’s — were all snubbed by the NCAA selection committee.

St. John’s arguably had the biggest gripe of the three. It finished 20-13 overall, winning six games in a row — four of them by at least 14 points — before a loss to overall No. 1 seed UConn in the Big East semifinals on Friday.

Red Storm coach Rick Pitino backed his team’s résumé on Sunday. It ranked 24th in the Basketball Power Index (BPI), best of any squad that did not make the NCAA tournament. It also had a NET ranking of 32nd, second best among teams to miss the tournament behind Indiana State (28th).

“First off, I think we should all probably never mention that word [NET] again because I think it’s fraudulent,” Pitino told SNY. “I think the NET is something that shouldn’t even be mentioned anymore.

“I think that we had a good strength of schedule. KenPom, why mention him? We were 26th in KenPom. We tried to play a tough schedule. We tried to do things the right way, and we didn’t get in. But I never make excuses. I respect the committee for what they do. They give their time, they give their energy to it. They didn’t think we measured up to their standards, and we’ll take it very positively like men and move forward. We’re not going to gripe. We’re not going to say we got screwed.”

Had the Red Storm gotten in, Pitino would have led his sixth school into the NCAA tournament. Instead, they won’t play again this season, as Pitino told the National Invitation Tournament selection committee that the team didn’t want to play in the also-ran event.

“After thorough consideration of all that goes into postseason participation, we believe at this time it is best for our team and basketball program to prepare for next season,” he said in a statement.

While the Big 12 got a conference-record eight teams in the field, Oklahoma (20-12) was left out even though it didn’t lose outside of Quadrant 1 games. The SEC-bound Sooners did lose nine of their last 14 games following a 15-3 start. Like St. John’s, they declined an NIT invite, with coach Porter Moser saying he felt the team’s résumé and metrics were worthy of being in the field while noting that the choice not to continue the season was done with the “well-being of our student-athletes as the top priority.”

Pittsburgh also said Sunday night that it had declined an NIT invite. The Panthers (22-11) won 12 of their last 16 games, a stretch that began with a win at Duke. The early losses by the Panthers included one at home to Missouri, which went 0-18 in SEC play.

Coach Kim English was looking to lead Providence to the NCAA tournament in his first season with the Friars, but they too fell short despite a 21-13 record.

Providence finished 58th in the NET rankings but had a host of big wins, including over Marquette and twice versus Creighton — with one those victories coming in the Big East tournament.

“I think the analytics are bulls—,” English told reporters. “I think you could schedule bad teams in your nonleague and beat the snot out of them, beat them by 50 or 60. Coaching for so long has been a gentleman’s agreement: You have a large lead at the end of the game, for health reasons you take guys out. To get some other guys the opportunity to play, you take guys out. But right now might be a change in college basketball. Scheduling to beat teams by 40 and 50 might be a thing to do.

“When you get into this league, the analytics aren’t going to look very good in league. You’re playing against some really, really good coaches. We played at Connecticut, and they shoot 40% from the field. We’re a good defense. They won the game. They should be credited for winning the game. I do think there are some flaws in the system.”

After UConn, only two Big East teams made the NCAA tournament: Marquette is a 2-seed, and Creighton is a 3-seed.

“To me, the whole thing is kind of shell game,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “In the end, it just comes down to what the committee values.

“I just don’t understand how a Providence team that can beat Wisconsin in the nonconference, Creighton, Marquette and have those quality of wins and not get in. How does Seton Hall do what they did in the second-rated conference in the country and win 13 games and not get in? How is St. John’s so far off the cutline [to get in] too?”

The selection committee said Oklahoma, 28-win Indiana State, Seton Hall and Pittsburgh were the first four teams left out.

NCAA selection committee chairman Charles McClelland, commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, said five bids were stolen during the conference tournaments — and one of those was going to go to Indiana State, which fell in the final of the Missouri Valley tournament to Drake.

McClelland said that Virginia, which was on the bubble but drew a 7-seed in the NCAA tournament, rose above teams with higher NET rankings and comparable résumés, such as St. John’s and Indiana State, because some of the other bubble teams had too many “dents and dings.”

He also said where teams won mattered too.

“One of the things that we talked about more specifically is that this tournament is played at neutral sites,” McClelland said on ESPN Radio’s “Selection Sunday” show. “It’s not played at home, so there were some teams that had a lot of wins, but they were all at home, none on the road, and no very good wins on the road. So, we have to start looking at some of those factors.”

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.