One of the two possible options to keep the South Dakota State and South Dakota men’s basketball seasons alive has been cancelled due to the uncertainty of the coronavirus, The Gazelle Group announced Wednesday.
The College Basketball Invitational — which the Jackrabbits competed in 2014 and Coyotes were a part in 2018 — is taking no chances with its 16-team event for teams that are not picked for the NCAA tournament or NIT.
“Due to the uncertainty about the coronavirus and the impact it is having on college campuses across the country, we have decided to cancel the 2020 College Basketball Invitational,” the statement read.
The Gazelle Group, which created the tournament in the 2007-08 season, said the CBI would return in 2021.
No word yet on if the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT) is still on. Neither SDSU nor USD has participated in that five-round event, which is comprised of the same types of teams that play in the CBI and was founded in 2009 and expanded to a 26-team field in 2019.
By not being the No. 1 seed in the Summit League Tournament, neither the Jacks () nor Yotes () qualified for the automatic bid to the NIT that goes to that seed if it doesn’t win the conference tourney. SDSU fell into that category last season, as did USD in 2017.
Both South Dakota teams were knocked out of the Summit in the quarterfinals, which disqualified them for the automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.
The Summit League typically doesn’t sent more than the automatically qualifying team to either the NCAA nor the NIT, with at-large bids tough to come by based on the resumes — RPI and NET rankings, strength of schedule — of teams hoping for an at-large berth.
And this year is no exception for the Jacks (22-10) and Yotes (20-12), who were the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the Summit tourney, respectively.
