I don’t think voting not to go to a tournament is quitting. If I am not mistaken this has happened before with regards to bowl game invitations, with schools deciding not to accept an invitation from a Bowl
Team voted no on NIT
- Thread starter MorningCoffee13
- Start date
Yes, and both teams are more historically notable because of it.
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This happened twice in Pitt history as far as bowl games that I know of.
2020 COVID year 6-5 team. I think everyone can understand that.
1937 Pitt team that was already consensus and AP national champions before the bowl season...which at the time did not factor into rankings and were truly regarded as exhibitions. It was turned down to protest the university's poor treatment of the team during the prior year's Rose Bowl where it refused to provide any spending money on the weeks-long cross country train trip and increasingly shoddy treatment of Jock Sutherland, who by the way, was kept in the dark by the athletic director.
If there was locker room strife, or legitimate health issues, or some issue with the university like the crap that happened in 1936 with the program on the verge of being intentionally neutered, then I could understand that.
I believe the 1963 football team turned down a lesser bowl game after being passed over by the bigger bowls because the PSU game was postponed due to JFK's assasination.
Because WhackyTaco thinks he owes it to dear old Pittsburgh, rah rah sis boom bah! These kids are money making mercenaries and are not at Pitt for love and devotion to it. They truly don't give a schitt about the school's latest building acquisition on 5th Ave or their latest school ranking from Forbes magazine. This is their job and given the choice between a break from the game and a meaningless exhibition they chose, uh, duh.
What X did was quit on his team and the season , what Pitts players decided was that they didn’t really want to play in a loser’s tournament.
Get over it .
Get over it .
Ah, I get it now. So UNC sucked this year and didn't win the ACC regular season and didn't get a 1 seed the the big dance because they wouldn't go to the NCAA last year. I guess if they had gone to the NIT they would be a one seed now.
I’m probably in the minority, but I hate that they aren’t playing. More experience for the young guys is never a bad thing and I think we would’ve had a strong chance to win it, which would’ve been a nice springboard into next year.
I don't like it either. I don't like anything about the NIL, the portal/players transferring without sitting out a year, or players opting out of bowl games because they are probably going to be drafted by an NFL team. But I also understand that is where things are today.
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Agreed. Definitely disappointed we didn’t get to see them compete again. They were not NC contenders but could have made a nice run. I am not so much disappointed they won’t be playing in meaningless games in the NIT. It’s just not nearly the same vibe and excitement. It doesn’t even hold the excitement of some of the preseason tourneys for me
What did they quit on. They gave their all to get into the tourney. Thats the main objective. They decided not to play in meaningless games exhibition games. They didn’t quit on anything
Better to decline than play with half hearted effort producing an embarrassing loss….which is precisely what happened the last time Pitt played in the losers tournament
I’d wager that the vote was just about unanimous…no small cadre of players quit on others as you contend.
Are they paid? The answer is yes. No further explanation is needed to address that question.
So how it actually works in the ACC (which is not atypical), at least before any new incentive structures, all bowl money has been collected and pooled by the conference, which is the entity which contracts with the bowls to begin with, and that pool of money is split across membership as part of the annual revenue distribution. So schools get paid for being members of a conference. But this pooling of revenue, so that the bowl contracts are upheld and because the money collectively effects everyone, is also why schools pretty much are obligated to go when invited.
Schools do get predefined additional reimbursement to subsidize championship travel, including bowls. As noted, costs which included travel, bonuses, and required ticket sale alotments, often that exceed conference subsidizations. Classic example reported in the press: Clemson reported a deficit of $3 million from playing in the ACC Championship, Orange, and CFP title game in 2016.
Now, you can call the above getting "paid," although I have no idea what your point in this context is, but I'll assume it implies some strong financial inducement for schools themselves, but that often isn't actually the case for the schools individually, and technically, they aren't being paid by the bowls themselves.
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I didn't imply it was anything. Whether it was unanimous or not, I don't like it just the same, if it was even up for a team vote. Athletic teams aren't democracies, at least usually. If it went to a team vote, I disagree with even having let it go to a vote.
I would have told them you are playing to get a chance to make yourself better, and to prove these assholes wrong, because they robbed you of your brothers from imprinting themselves on that banner overhead, and we aren't going to rob ourselves of the remaining opportunity to forge the best legacy we can together because even a NIT championship team will have a legacy at the institution that will be remembered, and we are going to enjoy playing with each other for as long as we can because that's what people that love each other do, and that is what those who respect the game do, whether it is in front of 10 people or 10K...you play while you can, because your life in basketball is short.
Maybe I'm too old school, but I don't let anyone sulk in the moment. I certainly wouldn't have endorsed it.
All the articles that I've seen imply it was decided after the perceived snub in a fit of, as one article put it, of "bitterness." I don't know what the case is, only those within those wall know and they're not going to share, but if Pitt leadership wasn't expecting to get passed over and acted in the heat of the moment, then they weren't paying attention and preparing for the letdown appropriately and I'm personally disappointed with them for the message they have sent.
If there are other extenuating circumstances, that may change things for my opinion on it. But it certainly appears it was just a gut reaction to not getting the tournament bid that everyone wanted.
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They've been practicing since October and playing games since November! A practice on Tuesday and playing an exhibition game on Wednesday isn't going to gain anyone experience, same goes for the one or two practices they'd have if they somehow won the first game.
The NIT is a relic from the olden days when the NCAA tournament wasn't as big of deal and then hung on as a nostalgia thing for old farts who wanted to reminisce about CCNY, all it is now is time filler for ESPN.
It's not 1951! The NIT Championship is MEANINGLESS, that's why so many teams turned down the invite.
It is so meaningless, 32 teams accepted a bid and will compete, many of those have a lot more tradition and banners in their gym than Pitt. Because someone in those programs is a competitor, which apparently Pitt does not have.
I don't care if it is meaningless or not, you ALWAYS take the opportunity to play. I said the exact same thing about the CBI in 2012.
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Actually, to be clear, you are wrong both technically, and in the context that your point, as much as I can understand it, doesn't have any sort of validity in reality.
You said that you detested “some players quitting on others”:….if that doesn’t imply that some players with selfish ulterior motives nixed the NIT, then I think you’re joshing with us. Did the
vote need to be unanimous to carry the day…who knows for sure.
Whether participation should have been put to a vote is a separate issue. I understand your perspective and it has some merit. We seem, however, to be in a moment in time where player rights and opinions are given more weight in the whole scheme of things. The current sentiment is that the institution is benefiting from the efforts of the athletes so that the institution should respect the view of the athlete as to whether the purported legacy associated with further play is worth pursuing.
No doubt Pitt got screwed. I’d rather, however, they not play the game than suffer an embarrassing loss which is exactly what happened the last time Pitt played in the NIT, when perhaps participation was forced down the players’ throats.
Actually, the NCAA was pretty much the dominant and most important tournament since the early 1940s.
The importance of the NIT is really retroactively inflated. Sure, it had good teams, but that was largely because only conference champions got invited to the NCAA. All you have to do is look at the teams invited and who was playing where. The bulk of ranked teams went to the NCAA, not the NIT. And going back to the 40s, during the war, there were actually charity games that pitted the NIT vs NCAA winners....NIT never won.
How am I wrong when you state that Pitt gets both "revenue sharing" (which is larger due to Pitt making a bowl game) and "additional reimbursement" for the costs of the bowl game?
Unless I'm mistaken, both of those are payments to Pitt. That sure sounds like they are getting paid.
I was googling some stuff on the NIT last night and ran into an article about Tennessee removing their NIT banner from the rafters due to fan ridicule (selebrating teams that didn't make the NCAA)
And that's coming from Tennessee, a program that has historically been ass.
Ok, I really don't know if some wanted to play or not. No one does. And I'm sure it is more likely everyone would vote together if there was a vote, or fell into line behind team leadership.
I doubt any of it was actually for selfish reasons of preparing for this or that. If I had to guess, I'd bet it was mostly just everyone was pissed off and disappointed and, probably, I or we are too good for this NIT thing.
I don't like any attitude not to play...all of them or none of them, but I detest even more Pitt leadership letting them.
So you actually believe Pitt's team is composed of quitters who lack competitiveness? I'm not sure you want to go there.
If you said the same in 2012, then you must have lied because you're still here complaining.
Pitt played and won a postseason championship in 2012.
The only postseason championship Pitt has ever won its basketball history. And it got to do by gutting out a revenge win at Hinkle Fieldhouse in OT along the way.
That was a team that had major struggles all year, lost 7 of their last 9, but kept playing, and ended up champions.
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Good for that team. This is not that team with higher goals.
Or a bunch of uncompetitive quitters according tom you.
I would have liked a few more PITT games, as it stands my interest in watching basketball this week has dropped to ZERO. I'm not sure if I'll be able to watch at all? Maybe I'll adopt Duquesne?
At no time was the CBI the goal of the 2012 team. But they seized the opportunities in front of them to continue competing.
That is the direct opposite of turning down the opportunity to keep competing.
You mean losing to Miss St at the Fitzgerald FH in front of 1000 people? That springboard?
Pitt got the same base revenue share for 2023 that they other 13 football teams did. That included a chunk of conference bowl revenue. Did they get paid for going to a bowl in 2023?
Here's from the actual ACC bylaws:
2.5.10 Distribution of Revenue from Postseason Football Games.
The Conference equally shares all bowl revenues. After all bowl expense allotments and ticket
reimbursements are subtracted from the total bowl revenue, the remaining revenue is distributed evenly
among the Members.
Each Member participating in a bowl game is provided an expense allotment. The College Football
Playoff will provide an expense allotment to any Member participating in the College Football Playoff
national championship, semifinals, or host bowls. Expense allotments for all other bowls are provided by
the Conference and are subject to 3% annual increases as shown in the following table
Each participating Member is responsible for the purchase of half (50%) of the financial value of that
bowl game’s ticket allotment. The Conference will make best efforts to provide each Member with bowl
tickets in the desired sections as the bowl manifest allows. Members are incentivized to sell into the
second half of the financial value of the ticket allotment with the right to retain 50% of any additional
revenue for ticket sales above the first-half threshold. The participating Member shall not be obligated to
pay for any unsold tickets from the second half of the bowl game’s ticket allotment, provided the
participating Member is in compliance with the minimum Team Ticket Allocation Sales Requirements
distributed annually by the Conference office (marketing department). Should the participating team in
the Detroit Bowl sell less than $100,000 in tickets (inclusive of taxes and fees), any difference between
the $100,000 and actual tickets sold shall be owed to the Conference as part of bowl settlement and will
then be included in bowl payout as additional bowl revenue.
Any ticket price deviation (either through value-added packages or adjustments to the price of tickets)
must be approved in advance by the Conference.
The vote was the definition of sour grapes. The team demeaned itself. From the Board to the team, everybody was claiming to be better than all the other bubble teams. The venue is less important. The NIT would have given the team an opportunity to prove it, to defeat and maybe dominate these other teams from Paco's list: LSU, Georgia, Boston College, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Iowa, Minnesota, Seton Hall, Providence, Villanova, Butler, Xavier, Cincinnati, UCF, Kansas State, Utah. Now, if the players want to bluff themselves about who they are or who they were, they will have to keep their mouths shut.
