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The Bids are Out...

P

PBP

Active member
The Bids are Out...

Idaho plays at Baylor in the NCAA's.
Montana St. plays at Utah in the WNIT.
Grand Canyon is at No.Dakota in the WBI.
Weber St. will play at New Mexico in the WBI.

Surprised about a few things...

Montana and Eastern Washington both won 20 games yet they aren't going anywhere.

And granted I'm biased but ISU won 18 games, won eight of the last 12, have a good RPI, beat teams from bigger conferences (hello, Boise State, Utah State, Seattle, Utah Valley), played three top 25 teams and almost beat one (hello, Texas El-Paso), beat the #1, #2, #3, and #4 seeds in the league and made it to the finals of the Big Sky Conference tournament. I think they would have been a valid selection.

Also I'm sure Jon Newlee has probably already commented on how unfair it was for the Vandals to get a #16 seed and in this case he may have a point. The Big Sky the past few years has ranked around the middle of conference RPI's nationally and is certainly the 3rd best league west of the Rockies. Big Sky teams beat teams from the Mountain West (don't know about the West Coast or Pac-12 Conferences...maybe someone can check that) and overall certainly aren't a pushover. The talent is very good and the conference is deeper than in the past since Idaho, No. Dakota and So. Utah joined (remember So. Utah were co-champs two years ago...)

Oh well.

PBP
 
Idaho is a #16 at Baylor. Ouch. :lol:

So I was looking into these different tournaments, men's and women's, and my question is, did ISU even want to participate in these tournaments?

The Vegas 16 required a $50,000 entry fee. The CBI requires $50,000 to host a first and second round game, and all teams are required to bid on them. The CIT requires $38,500 to host a game, but I don't know if you're required to bid on one. The women's WBI is a little better deal, it requires $10,000 to host a first round game. I don't know if all teams are required to bid on them.

So my point is, many on this board keep reminding us that we're basically the Sisters of the Poor. If we are short on staff, how realistic is it to play in a second rate tournament which probably requires shelling out tens of thousands of dollars? If we have an extra $50,000 burning a hole in somebody's pocket, then why not use it on hiring staff? Or better yet, that's close to a guarantee amount to bring in a mid-major opponent for the non-conference season.

So yeah, I'm thinking ISU might have said thanks but no thanks based on the tight purse strings.
 
Spudhead said:
Idaho is a #16 at Baylor. Ouch. :lol:

So I was looking into these different tournaments, men's and women's, and my question is, did ISU even want to participate in these tournaments?

The Vegas 16 required a $50,000 entry fee. The CBI requires $50,000 to host a first and second round game, and all teams are required to bid on them. The CIT requires $38,500 to host a game, but I don't know if you're required to bid on one. The women's WBI is a little better deal, it requires $10,000 to host a first round game. I don't know if all teams are required to bid on them.

So my point is, many on this board keep reminding us that we're basically the Sisters of the Poor. If we are short on staff, how realistic is it to play in a second rate tournament which probably requires shelling out tens of thousands of dollars? If we have an extra $50,000 burning a hole in somebody's pocket, then why not use it on hiring staff? Or better yet, that's close to a guarantee amount to bring in a mid-major opponent for the non-conference season.

So yeah, I'm thinking ISU might have said thanks but no thanks based on the tight purse strings.
Click to expand...

Anything is possible to be sure and if that's the case that's understandable I guess but I'd find it hard to tell the players on both the men's and women's teams who bust their rear ends basically all year long that they can't keep playing because of finances. Makes you wonder where all the billions of dollars the NCAA is getting just from the TV deals for the NCAA Basketball Tournament is going. I mean they couldn't hand out 50 grand to smaller schools like ISU to let the athletes play?

PBP
 
Final coaches show is Wednesday but as of right now the only person I've been told who will be there is Mike Kramer. I've requested Seton but maybe he's not around, we'll see.

PBP
 
I'm not shocked EWU & Montana didn't get anything, but I'm quite surprised Weber got a WBI bid ahead of them. Weber was 9th. in the league in the RPI. I guess it's possible Montana turned down a bid since it would've been on the road, but Wendy Schuller's twitter feed suggests the Eagles weren't invited to anything.

I'm also surprised NoDak didn't get WNIT. They have a top-100 RPI.
 
I understand that Montana had interest from the WBI but they turned them down. Don't remember the last time UM women weren't in a postseason tournament of some kind.

Eastern may have been a combination of not a lot of interest and if there was they couldn't afford to pay the entry fee.

PBP
 
PBP said:
I understand that Montana had interest from the WBI but they turned them down. Don't remember the last time UM women weren't in a postseason tournament of some kind.
Click to expand...

2012. They also missed in 2010—UM would've got the WNIT auto if EWU had won the tournament, but they were upset by MSU.
 
Weber State won their first WBI game at New Mexico.

No. Dakota beat Grand Canyon in Grand Forks.
They host Weber in the second round of the WBI Sunday. (They can afford to keep buying home games...)

In the NCAA's tonight Baylor destroyed Idaho 89-59. They led 30-9 after the first quarter.

Montana St. was blown apart by Utah 95-61 in the WNIT. So MSU ends the season having lost four straight.

PBP
 
PBP said:
Weber State won their first WBI game at New Mexico.

No. Dakota beat Grand Canyon in Grand Forks.
They host Weber in the second round of the WBI Sunday. (They can afford to keep buying home games...)

In the NCAA's tonight Baylor destroyed Idaho 89-59. They led 30-9 after the first quarter.

Montana St. was blown apart by Utah 95-61 in the WNIT. So MSU ends the season having lost four straight.

PBP
Click to expand...

Really embarrassing finish to the season for the Bobcats (what else is new for that school?). They lost worse to a WNIT team than Idaho did to a top-4 team. :?

This also ends a streak of 3 straight years of Big Sky teams winning WNIT games.
 
I agree that Montana States finish was not so stellar. Hard to lose after suffering the loss to Idaho State. ( go Bengals )
But I did think that Weber State had an OK showing last night against Xavier. Not the best, but decent. They lost by a lot in the end, but fought pretty hard to hang for a while after a slow start. AND kudos to the Pitt band for learning the Weber State fight song, and filling in for Webers band. They paid the 20 or so kids $15.00 each and put a weber state shirt on them. Cheaper then flying the band and equipment out! Lol. And the Pitt kids got to extend their March Madness memories after Pitt lost out. Cool story there...
 
Bengal:

Of course in the NCAA's the NCAA picks up the tab and charters flights so why Weber wouldn't bring some of their actual band is puzzling to me.

It's not like they don't have the money. For example, they are paying the women's basketball coach 140 thousand a year...and until this year that program has been pretty bad.

PBP
 
PBP said:
Bengal:

Of course in the NCAA's the NCAA picks up the tab and charters flights so why Weber wouldn't bring some of their actual band is puzzling to me.

It's not like they don't have the money. For example, they are paying the women's basketball coach 140 thousand a year...and until this year that program has been pretty bad.

PBP
Click to expand...
PBP
I had no idea NCAA would pay for the band. That is odd then that Weber wouldn't take them.
Thanks for the info.
 
When ISU went in 2012, the band showed up on the charter flight and there were a bunch of them.

PBP
 
According to a post from someone in the Weber athletic Department, the Weber band already had a concert scheduled this weekend and was unavailable, so they "hired" a replacement.
 
Weber State gets a late basket to beat No. Dakota 76-74 Sunday in the WBI. Weber is the last program standing in women's play.

Who would have thought that?

Has won two post season games on the road.

They host USC Upstate Wednesday.

PBP
 
Weber blew out USC Upstate (where is that? It's upstate! LOL) last night 79-53 to advance to the finals of the WBI.

They'll play at Louisiana-Lafayette Saturday at 2PM Mountain time.

PBP
 
Here's a little note which says something about the overall strength of the Big Sky in women's basketball.

Seven programs had winning records overall this past year, Montana St., Eastern Wash., Idaho, No. Dakota, Montana, Weber St., and Idaho State. That's out of 12 programs.

Five of the above won at least 20 games...Montana St., Eastern Wash., Idaho, Montana and Weber St.

Pretty good in my book.

PBP
 
PBP said:
Here's a little note which says something about the overall strength of the Big Sky in women's basketball.

Seven programs had winning records overall this past year, Montana St., Eastern Wash., Idaho, No. Dakota, Montana, Weber St., and Idaho State. That's out of 12 programs.

Five of the above won at least 20 games...Montana St., Eastern Wash., Idaho, Montana and Weber St.

Pretty good in my book.

PBP
Click to expand...

If NoDak had beaten Weber in the WBI, the Big Sky would've had six 20-win teams. Still, the flat distribution/lack of any real good teams gave the league little hope of going anywhere in a major postseason tourney.
 
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