Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Boston talks NMSU postseason

New Mexico State athletics director McKinley Boston believes the Aggies are a bubble team.

Personally, I don't agree with him. But I haven't sat in a selection room like Boston has.

NMSU does have some positive things on its resume with a RPI at 68 and a schedule strength of 112. The Aggies have a road win against New Mexico, No. 33 RPI and a contender in the  Mountain West Tournament. But the WAC is the No. 12 league in terms of RPI and the Aggies are 1-6 against the RPI Top 100.

"I think we will be on the board in the process that looks for who is an at large team," Boston said. "I think if we lost in the finals, we would be a legitimate bubble team."

The  focus on campus is obviously to reach the NCAA Tournament, but Boston said NMSU would accept a Postseason NIT bid if they fail to win this week's WAC Tournament or receive an at large bid. NMSU put in a bid to host a first-round NIT game. This web site has the Aggies hosting Arkansas. 

Unlike previous years when NMSU turned down invitations to play in tournaments like the CBI, there isn't a significant cost to the university to host a game — NMSU's bid projected an attendance of 4,100 with a total revenue of around $50,000 after expenses.

Going into this year, I believed some form of postseason would be necessary to sort of legitimize the direction of the program under Marvin Menzies.

"I do think it's important for our seniors," Boston said. "I think there is a difference between an earned postseason as opposed to buying a postseason because there is a certain criteria and accomplishments that show a team's effort. That would be important."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Must be the mushrooms.

Aggies might get a cursory glance by the selection committee but that's it, there won't be any invites without the WAC tourney title. If they don't win the WAC tourney, the NIT would surely take them.

As far as the CBI, this is NMSU and not UTEP. UTEP administration thinks so much of their two CBI tourney runs that they don't even acknowledge the CBI with tourney banners in the Don. The CBI is a sham and rewards those teams that aren't good enough to get invites to real tournaments. Plus, the schools that participate get the hefty $50K buy in fee. That money could be spent on equipment or another assistant coach, instead of being thrown away in the CBI.

Anonymous said...

A bubble team?! C'mon Boston!

Oh, I forgot. You still think your smarter than all of us combined!!

Anonymous said...

This is further confirmation that Boston needs to go. If we win the final over Nevada, then Nevada probably goes, too. Not the other way around. We had our chances to get a couple more quality wins in both Nevada games, at Hawaii, at Idaho and Arizona at home and we blew them all. If we had won just 2 of those 5 games, then yes, we would be a bubble team right now. But not in our current situation.

Anonymous said...

I was surprised to see So. MS with a better RPI than Murray State last week. Begs the question of how NMSU would fare now in the Kabongo-less / no real backup point guard configuration? Too bad that the chance to prove themselves came so early in the Aggies' season (preseason). It'd be nice to see the critics silenced once again in the Orleans Arena although, JG, I'm sure you can make a good case that Boston is overstating his. What do fans want him to say? Saw these guys off on the bus yesterday and I think their team solidarity is going to outweigh any individual accolades the 1-seed can hang up. Burton won't stay 4 years. Bill Nostradamus

Anonymous said...

According to the RGJ Nevada has an RPI of 47 and ESPN says that their not a bubble team so how does he figure NMS is ?

Anonymous said...

WAC is too weak to have any bubble teams. WAC tourney winner gets a 13 seed, and that's it for the Big Dance.

Anonymous said...

He's the AD. What? you think he's going to say the team is more like an NIT team than on the bubble???