LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -Arkansas-Little Rock will have to settle for a bittersweet distinction – the Trojans have more Division I wins than any team not in a national postseason tournament.
UALR (23-8) was not included in the field for the National Invitation Tournament when it was announced Sunday night, and athletic director Chris Peterson said Monday the school did not have much interest in the College Basketball Invitational or the new CollegeInsider.com tournament.
“The CBI and the CollegeInsider – I give those people a lot of credit for starting new tournaments and that’s great – but our goal was to play in the NCAA or the NIT,” Peterson said.
UALR’s NCAA tournament hopes were dashed when the Trojans lost to South Alabama in the semifinals of the Sun Belt Conference tournament last week. Western Kentucky won that tournament and received a No. 12 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Belt tourney, he feels the Trojans would have secured at least an NIT spot.
“We were definitely on the bubble,” Peterson said. “We felt confident if we were in a championship game that we’d have made it.”
The Trojans’ RPI was No. 91, and Peterson pointed out that was one spot ahead of Washington State, which made the NIT.
UALR has played in the NIT three times, most recently in 1996.
The College Basketball Invitational is another 16-team tournament that began last year – and CollegeInsider.com has scheduled a new one this year for 16 more teams.
“We were contacted last week by both of them,” Peterson said. “We’d made that decision that our goal was to be in the NIT.”
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