First-year tourney confident it can withstand NCAA heat

CHAMPAIGN – Bradley coach Jim Les has no regrets about competing in the inaugural College Basketball Invitational.

"Absolutely we'd do it again," Les said by phone. "Yeah, the goal is to play in the NCAA tournament. But this is another opportunity."

Bradley plays tonight at Tulsa in the rubber game of the CBI's best-of-three championship series (7, Fox College Sports, DirecTV ch. 669). The unusual championship format closes an unusual debut for the CBI, the so-called third tournament on the March Madness spectrum.

Though the NCAA tournament's Final Four starts Saturday in San Antonio, and the NIT closed with Wednesday's championship in New York City, all of the CBI's games took place on campus sites. Tulsa won the first meeting at Tulsa; Bradley won the second meeting before a tournament-record 9,014 fans Wednesday in Peoria.

But if college athletics' governing body had its way, no one would host anything. The CBI wouldn't exist.

"The NCAA tried to put us out of business," CBI founder and Gazelle Group president Rick Giles said. "They tried to intimidate teams not to come with us on selection night."

Giles' voice rose as he discussed the NCAA's alleged strong-arming of the CBI. He said the NCAA convinced the Big 12 Conference to boycott the first-year event, which raised more eyebrows than "Oh, yeahs!" when organizers announced intentions to compete with the NIT.

The NCAA did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the CBI. But Giles said he organized college basketball's third postseason tournament for reasons that he believes were misunderstood.

One, he saw a postseason landscape that didn't have enough room for deserving teams, particularly after the NIT was reduced from 40 to 32 teams. Two, he saw the inequality in college basketball's postseason compared with college football's. Out of 119 Division I football teams, 64 compete in bowl games (53 percent).

But of 341 Division I basketball teams, 97 competed in the NCAA tournament and NIT (28 percent), before the 16-team CBI.

Bradley (21-16) will leave the CBI with a positive impression, Les said. The Braves raced to the championship round by beating Cincinnati, Ohio and Virginia, three programs that would be difficult to place on Bradley's regular season schedule.

"I don't think there's been any question it's been great," Les said. "We're not giving our kids more and more opportunities to play in the postseason, even though the numbers (of teams) are growing. Whether it continues to be in this tournament or elsewhere, I think we have to get it more in balance, a la what we do with football. That's No. 1.

"No. 2 is that for a team like us, who had to deal with some adversity and some injuries, it gives us an opportunity to play in the postseason. This tournament has allowed us to play back at full strength and maybe realize some of the potential that we weren't able to realize during the regular season."

Giles admitted there were a handful of "mini-nightmares" as the Gazelle Group organized the tournament. He said one college coach declined an invitation by saying, "We don't want to be the guinea pig."

He said the Big 12 Conference "boycotted" the event and would not allow its teams to compete. Though the Big Ten did not have any teams in the tournament, he said the league was open to the opportunity.

And next season? Giles said the CBI is here to stay.

"When I take a step back, I couldn't be more pleased with how it has turned out," he said.

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