CIT Thread 2016-2017

[Muskie]

Monday, March 13
Norfolk State at Liberty, 7:05 p.m. ET (Coach John McLendon Classic)

Tuesday, March 14
Saint Francis at Jacksonville, 7 p.m. (Hugh Durham Classic)

Houston Baptist at Campbell, 7 p.m.
Canisius at Samford, 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 15
Ball State at Fort Wayne, 7 p.m. (Lou Henson Classic)
Fairfield at UMBC, 7 p.m.
Georgia State at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 8 p.m.
Stephen F. Austin at Idaho, 11 p.m.

Thursday, March 16
Saint Peter’s at Albany, 7 p.m.
Furman at USC Upstate, 7 p.m.
UNC Asheville at UT Martin, 8 p.m.
Lamar at Texas State, TBD
Weber State at Cal State Fullerton, 10 p.m. (Riley Wallace Classic)

Second round
March 17-20

Quarterfinals
March 23-26

Semifinals
Wednesday, March 29
Semifinal 1, 7 p.m., CBS Sports Network
Semifinal 2, 9 p.m., CBS Sports Network

Championship
Friday, March 31
Semifinal winners, 9 p.m, CBS Sports Network

[xubrew]

Can we merge the two threads?? As much as I like the CIT, it hardly warrants two threads.

Nice win for Samford tonight against Canisius. Both teams are similar in the sense that they lost a lot of close games to some of the better teams in their league, and that both have the bulk of their teams back next year. Playing in a postseason tournament like the CIT can kind of be the first step toward a successful next season if they have a lot of players coming back.

[drudy23]

People watch this crap?

[xubrew]

Maybe not many people, but I do. Most of what I watch is mid and low level conferences. In fact in recent years I've DVR'd the Elite Eight and not watched it live because I've watched the CIT semis instead. I really like the CIT. I actually follow it more closely than the NIT, and I refuse to watch the CBI.

[xubrew]

The semifinals of this tournament are tonight. Good to see it getting a little bit of air time (sort of) on the CBS Sports Network.

So, there has been a lot of talk about coaching lately. Niko Medved had done a great job at Furman. They absolutely sucked when he got there, they only won nine games his first year, and this year they were a frontrunner in the SoCon and advanced to the semifinals of the CIT. Unfortunately for Furman, he is gone now. He accepted the head coaching job at Drake before the tournament was even over. THANKS COACH!!

UMBC is probably the better story, and Ryan Odom is probably the better coach. He was a very successful div2 coach, and in his first year at UMBC he has won over twenty games. This is particularly impressive given that their win totals for the previous were 7, 4, 8, 7, 4, 5, and 4. Their last year of winning double digit games was 2009. For Odom to get there and suddenly win 21 is no small thing. I don't mean that as faint praise. They were one of the bigger turnarounds in all of college hoops. They've also been fun to watch this year. You turn on their home games, and there are actually people there.

TAMUCC and Saint Peter's are the other two teams. I don't particularly find either one of them nearly as interesting.

[X-band '01]

Odom is also the son of former Wake Forest/South Carolina head coach Dave Odom.