College basketball is already under fire, and the NIT's treatment of a now-former participant just added more fuel to the fire.
South Alabama head coach Richie Riley didn’t hold back after his team was embarrassingly removed from the tournament bracket just an hour after being invited. And to make matters worse, the NIT’s attempt at an apology only deepened the outrage — so much so that some are questioning whether it was written by an actual person at all.
The Jaguars were invited to the NIT after UC Riverside withdrew to fulfill an obligation to play in the College Basketball Invitation (CBI). Riley also confirmed with NCAA officials to ensure his team would still be in the NIT field. However, UC Riverside, seemingly out of nowhere, escaped its CBI obligation and reclaimed its NIT spot, leaving South Alabama with nothing. When the NIT released a formal apology on Monday, it did little to calm the storm.
Riley wasn’t having it. He fired back on Twitter, calling the statement “a meaningless apology to the most meaningful group of players I’ve ever coached." He blasted the NIT’s handling of the situation as “inexcusable.” He ended his post with a damning accusation: “These guys in our locker room don’t deserve this, and it’s sad your idea of making it right is a copy-and-paste apology!”
He wasn’t alone in his frustration. One social media reply summed up the reaction to the NIT’s statement, comparing it to an AI-generated message: "They didn’t even have the decency to have a real person write this ‘apology.’”
College basketball has gone under fire for several events recently and South Alabama just provided more proof
Some will say South Alabama should not complain, but the reality is, the league screwed the pooch here. As if this event wasn't bad enough, the controversy over South Alabama’s snub comes at a time when college basketball’s leadership is already under heavy scrutiny. The NCAA Tournament selection process is facing backlash after North Carolina made the field despite a weak résumé against Quad 1 opponents.
The fact that the selection committee chairman, Bubba Cunningham, is also UNC’s athletic director raised even more eyebrows — especially since he claims he “wasn’t in the room” when the Tar Heels were chosen. The optics of favoritism are hard to ignore. Compared to the NIT debacle, the UNC selection scandal may potentially be a more significant money-driven controversy, but both situations highlight a common theme: incompetence at the top.
Whether it’s the NCAA seemingly bending the rules for big-name programs or the NIT mishandling its own invitations, the governing bodies of college basketball are once again proving that fairness is an afterthought. For Riley and his team, no apology — real or AI-generated — can undo the disappointment of being promised a postseason opportunity only to have it ripped away.
For the rest of the college basketball world, this latest disaster is just another reminder that the people in charge aren’t nearly as concerned about the integrity of the game as they claim to be, cherry-picking when convenient without proper consistency.