South Alabama coach Richie Riley is fuming after his program accepted a bid to the NIT on Sunday evening and had the invitation rescinded later that night.
Riley informed his players that they would be playing in the tournament after the NIT told him it was OK to do so.
But UC Riverside had invitations from both the NIT and College Basketball Invitational. The school had previously accepted the CBI bid so it declined the invitation from the NIT. But later Sunday night, UC Riverside got out of the CBI commitment and informed the NIT it was accepting its bid.
Riley received the news from NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt and the reversal didn’t sit well with him.
“Whatever time it was, 10:45 (CT), 11 o’clock. Dan’s like, ‘No, UC Riverside is back in. I hate that we had to do this,'” Riley said of the conversation.
“This is unacceptable. You can’t do that.”
Gavitt issued an apology on Monday.
“After the NIT bracket was released Sunday evening, it was brought to the NIT’s attention that one of the teams scheduled to participate in the tournament had also committed to a non-NCAA affiliated postseason event,” the statement said. “In an effort to secure another participating team, the NIT prematurely extended an invitation to the South Alabama Jaguars, prior to learning that the original team chose to accept its invitation to the NIT.
“Regrettably, the NIT rescinded its invitation to South Alabama. We understand the emotional impact this confusion created, and we sincerely apologize to South Alabama, Head Coach Richie Riley, and all the student-athletes for the error.”
Riley wasn’t the least bit impressed by the apology.
“A meaningless apology to the most meaningful group of players I’ve ever coached!” Riley wrote on social media. “What they did to us last night is inexcusable! These guys in our locker room don’t deserve this and it’s sad your idea of making it right is a copy and paste apology!”
The Jaguars (21-11) tied for the Sun Belt regular-season crown with three other teams and were the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament. They were knocked out in the tournament semifinals by Arkansas State to end their third 20-win campaign in Riley’s seven seasons.
So the end result is no postseason play for South Alabama.
“It’s just unfair for our players,” the 42-year-old Riley said. “We’ve got a team with zero NIL. They’re a bunch of underdogs that fought their asses off. And now I have to tell them they’re not in the NIT. It’s just an absolute joke.”
