UC Riverside athletics director Wesley Mallette was driving to dinner with his wife on Sunday evening when his phone started to go crazy. The messages and calls were all variations of the same two ideas:
“Congrats on getting in the NIT!”
“Wait, Wes, how are you going to be in two tournaments?”
“I’m confused at this point,” Mallette told CBS Sports on Tuesday, recounting his mindset during one of the strangest days of his professional career. “I’m like, ‘Hold on a second. We didn’t hear from the NIT. Nobody gave us a head’s up.”
That was problem because UC Riverside had, by that point, accepted a bid to the CBI, another postseason basketball tournament that is unaffiliated with the NCAA.
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Thus, what was supposed to be a moment of celebration for a team that had earned the first postseason bid in the program’s 24-year Division I basketball history turned into a 24-hour news cycle of social media fascination and heartbreak for another team involved – South Alabama.
“We found out about the NIT when everyone else in the country found out when the bracket was released,” Mallette said. “There was no invitation. There was no phone call. There was no acceptance. We did not decline the NIT invitation. We never got invited.”
UC Riverside finished the regular season at 20-12 with a 14-6 record in Big West play. Going into the Big West tournament, Mallette figured the Highlanders had a shot at the NIT if they failed to win an NCAA Tournament auto bid, but nothing was guaranteed for a league that usually only gets a single invite to the NIT, another postseason tournament run by the NCAA.
The Highlanders lost their opening game in the Big West tournament on Thursday and didn’t hear anything from the NIT in the following days. Another Big West program that fell short in the tournament, UC Irvine, ranked higher than UC Riverside in the NET rankings, so Mallette figured the NIT would go in a different direction.
So, UC Riverside on Sunday accepted the CBI bid it had been offered. Then things got crazy.
It was announced via social media that UC Riverside would participate in the NIT. It was a moment of elation for a school that, just five years ago, had been at risk of being cut alongside the entire athletic department.
But of course, teams are allowed to only participate in one postseason tournament.
That’s when the NCAA gave UC Riverside a 15-minute deadline to decide whether it would play in the NIT or the CBI.
Big West Conference commissioner Dan Butterly stepped in and got UC Riverside a bit more time to work through the options. Mallette had to clear things with his president, general counsel and talk with his head coach. There were travel arrangements to figure out. There was a buyout that needed to be sorted out with the CBI; a tournament that charges an entry fee. Mallette declined to disclose the cost of the buyout.
In the end, UC Riverside opted to play in the NIT. It’s the more prestigious postseason tournament, an opportunity that showed how far the program had come in recent years.
But what Mallette said he wasn’t aware of on Sunday evening was the status of South Alabama.
The Jaguars, who had tied for the Sun Belt regular season championship, were contacted by the NCAA and offered a spot in the tournament when the NCAA thought UC Riverside had opted to play in the CBI. But when UC Riverside accepted its NIT bid — that it didn’t find out about until after the bracket was announced — South Alabama lost its spot.
Mallette has a connection to South Alabama’s basketball team. His son, Houston, is a senior guard for Alabama and played high school basketball with South Alabama forward Judah Brown.
When Mallette found out what occurred, he talked with South Alabama athletics director Joel Erdmann and head coach Richie Riley.
“I completely understand their outrage,” Mallette said. “They were promised they were in the NIT. (Riley) said they called him and told him they were in. He asked several times, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ This was all taking place as were trying to get clearance from our campus on how we were going to proceed.”
Ultimately, the snafu ended South Alabama’s season prematurely and cost UC Riverside money. Mallette said “we’re going to do what’s right” with the CBI, which means paying a buyout to accept the NIT bid.
When reached by CBS Sports about South Alabama’s pulled bid and the lack of communication with UC Riverside ahead of the NIT bracket announcement, the NCAA declined to comment and pointed to a statement it made Monday.
“After the NIT bracket was released Sunday evening, it was brought to the NIT’s attention that one of the teams scheduled to participate in the tournament has also committed to a non-NCAA affiliated postseason event,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said Monday in a statement. “In an effort to secure another participating team, the NIT prematurely extended an invitation to the South Alabama Jaguars, prior to learning that the original team chose to accept its invitation to the NIT.
“Regrettably, the NIT rescinded its invitation to South Alabama. We understand the emotional impact this confusion created, and we sincerely apologize to South Alabama, head coach Richie Riley and all the student-athletes for the error.”
UC Riverside will begin its NIT run on Tuesday evening at 11 p.m. ET against second-seeded Santa Clara. It’s a huge moment for head coach Mike Magpayo and the Highlanders.
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Mallette just wishes the communication from the NCAA had been cleaner to avoid the drama that played out over Sunday and Monday.
“I know we were not the only ones in this situation,” Mallette said. “Regardless of the process, how hard is it to contact conference liaisons and say: ‘Hey, we’re considering three or four schools from your conference. Reach out to them and make sure they’re aware.” How hard is it to do that? It’s a phone call. AAU people do that. Grassroots basketball does that. High school basketball does that. If you’re looking for teams to be in it, wouldn’t you want to know if they’re available?”
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