I remember. And thank you for making my point. If we were a shoe-in, why weren't we invited..? Because we weren't a shoe-in.

They independently decided to back out before selections were made. They got no invite because they withdrew themselves from consideration. Thus the birth of the "Chickenhawg" moniker.

Selective Hog memory.

I'm talking about UALR. If UALR was a shoe-in, they would have been invited. They (UALR) were not. Blaming a non-invite on what UAF did or didn't do is delusional. That's why the "Chickenhawg" moniker is so funny. It assumes UALR got an invite, but reality shows otherwise.

If the tournament back then were based on merit, we would have been in. Remember, back then, it was based on merit plus marketability. Without the Hogs to play, we weren't marketable. Thus no invite.

I hate to say it but we did, in fact, need the Hogs for that one.

More delusional thinking. If we were good enough to get in, we would have gotten in. You can't honestly believe there was not a single other team that would have marketable. I suspect you can look at every team and make a case that, boy if so-and-so got in, man what a match-up that would be. They (those other teams) get in regardless. Because they belonged.

(02-20-2010 12:06 PM)eh9198 Wrote:  If the tournament back then were based on merit, we would have been in. Remember, back then, it was based on merit plus marketability. Without the Hogs to play, we weren't marketable. Thus no invite.

I hate to say it but we did, in fact, need the Hogs for that one.

We can ***** and blame others for our shortcomings, but it all comes down to earning a bid that's automatic. That's the only thing that we can control. Until we have an automatic bid to either the NCAA or NIT, I don't think we can ever expect to receive an at large bid. If it were to happen by some miracle, that would be gravy, but I'm not counting on that happening. Win the league. Win the tournament. Then we don't have to be those "Poor little Trojans" who got screwed out of another trip to the postseason.

(02-20-2010 12:15 PM)Scotto Wrote:  More delusional thinking. If we were good enough to get in, we would have gotten in. You can't honestly believe there was not a single other team that would have marketable. I suspect you can look at every team and make a case that, boy if so-and-so got in, man what a match-up that would be. They (those other teams) get in regardless. Because they belonged.

At the time, there were many UALR fans (which included me) that honestly believed that UAF not going to the NIT kept us out as well. That was even the feeling of a couple of folks on the UALR staff (not Steve or Chris as far as I know). However, in hindsight, I have to agree with you. If the NIT thought we were worthy they would have taken us regardless. We can't blame not getting in on someone else. We only had 15 DI wins (although we had a very good RPI). Of course, last year we had 23 DI wins and still got snubbed.

(02-20-2010 12:42 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(02-20-2010 12:15 PM)Scotto Wrote:  More delusional thinking. If we were good enough to get in, we would have gotten in. You can't honestly believe there was not a single other team that would have marketable. I suspect you can look at every team and make a case that, boy if so-and-so got in, man what a match-up that would be. They (those other teams) get in regardless. Because they belonged.

At the time, there were many UALR fans (which included me) that honestly believed that UAF not going to the NIT kept us out as well. That was even the feeling of a couple of folks on the UALR staff (not Steve or Chris as far as I know). However, in hindsight, I have to agree with you. If the NIT thought we were worthy they would have taken us regardless. We can't blame not getting in on someone else. We only had 15 DI wins (although we had a very good RPI). Of course, last year we had 23 DI wins and still got snubbed.

This is of course just conjecture, but tradition probably has a lot to do with it. We don't have it. I would guess that if Western had been in the same situation, with the 23 wins against the same schedule, they would have been invited somewhere. But we'll never know that.

(02-20-2010 12:15 PM)Scotto Wrote:  More delusional thinking. If we were good enough to get in, we would have gotten in. You can't honestly believe there was not a single other team that would have marketable. I suspect you can look at every team and make a case that, boy if so-and-so got in, man what a match-up that would be. They (those other teams) get in regardless. Because they belonged.

Has any team with an RPI in the 60-80 range in the new, merit-based NIT era been snubbed? I could be wrong, but I don't believe so. We were good enough that year, in my opinion.

(02-21-2010 09:48 PM)eh9198 Wrote:  

(02-20-2010 12:15 PM)Scotto Wrote:  More delusional thinking. If we were good enough to get in, we would have gotten in. You can't honestly believe there was not a single other team that would have marketable. I suspect you can look at every team and make a case that, boy if so-and-so got in, man what a match-up that would be. They (those other teams) get in regardless. Because they belonged.

Has any team with an RPI in the 60-80 range in the new, merit-based NIT era been snubbed? I could be wrong, but I don't believe so. We were good enough that year, in my opinion.

As it turns out the Akron Zips had a higher RPI than us that year and got snubbed as well.

(02-21-2010 09:58 PM)mjs Wrote:  

(02-21-2010 09:48 PM)eh9198 Wrote:  

(02-20-2010 12:15 PM)Scotto Wrote:  More delusional thinking. If we were good enough to get in, we would have gotten in. You can't honestly believe there was not a single other team that would have marketable. I suspect you can look at every team and make a case that, boy if so-and-so got in, man what a match-up that would be. They (those other teams) get in regardless. Because they belonged.

Has any team with an RPI in the 60-80 range in the new, merit-based NIT era been snubbed? I could be wrong, but I don't believe so. We were good enough that year, in my opinion.

As it turns out the Akron Zips had a higher RPI than us that year and got snubbed as well.

I went back and found the RPI's from 2005 on a site by Warren Nolan.
According to what he calls the "old" RPI we were 94th and Akron was 85th. According to what he calls the "new" RPI we were 60th and Akron was 54th. Seems like the latter numbers are closer to what I remembered. So based simply on the RPI, Akron was snubbed worse than we were. But, we had things they didn't- Division champs, beat WKU (who went to the NIT) twice, and beat ULL (who went to the NCAA tournament) in the last game of the season. I remember, at the time there were some articles talking about Akron and UALR as the teams who got the biggest shafts by the NIT.