Imrem: There's no point playing in NIT
Illinois and Illinois State landed in the NIT, punctuating the sorry state of college basketball in this state.
Meanwhile, it also punctuated the skewed priorities of college sports in this country.
Seriously, the National Invitation Tournament?
Why bother?
This week will be another festival of baskets: NCAA Tournament, IHSA tournament, a couple of Bulls games.
Please don't include in that context Illinois' game against Alabama on Tuesday night in the NIT, a tourney that once was a harmless annoyance and now is another symbol of what's wrong with college athletics.
Don't forget Illinois State's titanic home tussle Wednesday night against Green Bay belongs in that assessment.
If Illinois and ISU were the institutions of higher learning they profess to be, they would have declined the invitations to the minor leagues of postseason basketball.
That would free up players to reintroduce themselves to their girlfriends, to go home to visit their families and, heaven forbid, to crack open a couple of textbooks.
Seriously, why should any school bother with the NIT? To provide programming for cable TV? Who's watching? People who need a life? Does anyone really care who wins?
Maybe Illinois and ISU players want to play on. Basketball players do like to play basketball.
But when is enough enough? When do schools step in to save athletes from themselves? When does the system stop demanding more and more of athletes?
It's one thing for 68 universities to deliver their teams to the NCAA Tournament to promote the school's brand.
But the NIT? Please, stop it. This has become to postseason basketball what all those dot.com bowls have been to postseason football.
Coaches think they can save their jobs and reputations by playing in a tournament. The players, well, they just put more and more wear and tear on bodies that already are stressed over nearly all 12 months of the year.
There are games. There are practices. There is weightlifting. There is running. Oh, yeah, sometimes there might even be time for some late-night studying.
All the NIT does is confirm that a basketball player is less student and more athlete.
Illinois and Illinois State already played a combined 65 games to prove they weren't good enough for the NCAA Tournament.
So instead of the big dance, the Illini and the Redbirds were relegated to an ice-cream social in the basement of the Holy Church of the Double Dribble.
It's easy to not even notice because so much attention is paid to the NCAAs that the NIT is pushed back onto the agate page.
Still, players like Illinois' and Illinois State's are lacing them up at least one more time in another meaningless tournament to justify the existence of their basketball programs.
This gives them another reason to consider themselves athletes more than students and to consider a championship — even an NIT championship — as important as a degree.
Critics of intercollegiate athletics are provided more fodder to question what exactly is the purpose of big-time basketball and football.
They can ask the eternal question of whether educating players is the top priority or using them to market the university is the only priority.
The hoopla over the NCAA Tournament is understandable and so is what it means to both the school and the athlete.
But, sorry, the NIT only reinforces the suspicion that athletics reign over academics.