Tom Crean Rips Teams For Declining NIT Bids

It's Selection Sunday, and the NCAA Tournament field is set. That also means the NIT field is set, but some programs declined invitations to the tournament, making various excuses for doing so. Tom Crean was on ESPN acting as a college basketball analyst and he absolutely ripped coaches and program for declining NIT bids.

Crean made a number of points rather forcefully. He said, as a coach, he would have wanted to continue to develop his team, and also get more games for players who may never play again. If players opted out, work around it. He also said there was plenty of time to recruit the portal and prepare for games.

Here's the clip:

Crean is absolutely right. Turning down a chance to play more games is incredibly dumb a short-sighted. Some programs believe they're "above" the NIT. To those programs I say, if you didn't make the NCAA Tournament, you aren't "above" the NIT. In fact, that's exactly your level.

St. John's, Pitt, Memphis, Indiana, Ole Miss and Oklahoma are among the programs who declined invitations. It was stupid to do so and they deserve to be shamed. Crean did an excellent job.