Well it's true it's true, the Gazelle Group has started a 16 team post season tournament to add to the other two post season tournaments (both run by the NCAA) and offer the opportunity for sixteen other teams to play post season ball. Normally I wouldn't be to interested in a new tournament, but this time is different. This time my home town team the UTEP Miners are playing in the first year of this tournament.
While it may not seem like a big deal to win an inaugural tournament or even play in one, I think it will really help the Miners who have shown signs of great play this year. It will give them, who by all accounts are a young team, a taste of post season play and will help them gel just a little bit more. I also think they will have a great shot at going far into the new tournament, especially with the way it is set up. According to the CBI website (http://www.gazellegroup.com/cbi/index_main.htm) the CBI will be played as a single-elimination tournament, up until the Championship Series, with all games being played at campus sites. The Championship Series will be a best of three series, home-away-home, in which the higher seed will get the first and last (if necessary) home games. All bracketing is done according to region geographically (East, West, South, Midwest) to minimize missed class time. Brackets will be balanced competitively within each region. The first round will have 8 games, the second round will have 4 games, followed by a semi-final round, and finally a championship series. It is an interesting approach to post season play in my opinion combining elements of the NCAA Tournament, the NIT, and the professional post-season.
I think the addition of this tournament shows how strong Conference USA truly is. Including the CBI, C-USA is sending five teams to the post-season (Memphis to the NCAA, UAB to the NIT, and UTEP, Houston, and Tulsa to the CBI). Not only that C-USA has the most teams of any conference in the CBI, which fields teams from 12 different conferences. The Field seems strong enough with only one team below .500, a couple at .500, and the other thirteen teams above .500. UTEP starts playing tomorrow at home against an old rival Utah from the Mountain West and will hopefully move on towards round two. Houston, out of C-USA, has already punched its ticket for round two tonight after beating the Nevada Wolf pack from the WAC.
All in all I think this is a good tournament, a great learning opportunity for the players, and another chance for fans to watch their teams play in the post-season. With that said good luck to all the C-USA teams and GO MINERS!
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