NIT Championship Recap - North Carolina vs Dayton

The final game of the 2010 National Invitation Tournament began with a jump ball, like any other basketball contest. Yet, this particular NIT finale felt distinctly different. A jump ball is exactly the right image to describe the future of this proud postseason tournament.

Before talking about how Dayton salvaged its season by winning a championship at Madison Square Garden in New York with an 11-point win over a disappointed North Carolina team, it's important to address the headline development from Thursday night's NIT final in the Big Apple. In most years, the winner and the loser would occupy most of the pregame and postgame buzz, but this time, an outside story relegated the action on the court to second place.

The event that overshadowed this April encounter between the Flyers of the Atlantic 10 and the Tar Heels of the ACC came earlier in the day, as NCAA spokesperson Greg Shaheen addressed a throng of reporters in Indianapolis and talked about the merits of a 96-team NCAA Tournament plan being weighed by the governing body of intercollegiate athletics. No official decision has been made, to be technical about it, but the writing on the wall says what lots of college basketball observers have been thinking for the past few months: The NCAA Tournament will indeed become a 96-team event before too long. It's almost impossible to think that the 65-team model will remain untouched in the next few years.

This increased push by the NCAA to drastically enlarge the field for the Big Dance carries major implications with regard to the postseason structure of college basketball. In the past four years, two new postseason events - the CBI and CIT tournaments - were created to give more winning teams from "downmarket" conferences a chance to play and win additional games in late March. With a 96-team NCAA Tournament, those events would almost surely cease to exist.

So would the NIT.

A 96-team NCAA Tournament - as has been discussed by many college basketball writers and bracketologists - would have included a lot of teams that didn't come particularly close to making the cut this season. A Connecticut team that lost 14 regular-season games and finished 7-11 in the Big East would have easily made the field. Conference USA - a notoriously mediocre league whose upper-tier programs regularly fade in early March and didn't deviate from the pattern this season - would have had at least four teams, and maybe five, in the tournament this season. Many other schools who had an NIT-appropriate resume with a 65-team NCAA field would have suddenly been welcomed into a 96-team Dance. A Northwestern team that lost twice to Penn State and also lost to Iowa and Indiana would have been right around the cut line for America's most favorite bracketed tournament.

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You get the picture: If the NCAA does expand its tournament to 96 teams, the rationale for the preservation of the 32-team NIT goes flying out the window. The NIT field would basically be added to the current 65-team NCAA field (minus one team, of course), which would make it very hard, if not impossible, for the NIT selection committee to find 32 teams worthy of putting fannies in seats, all while extra opening-round NCAA games take place in the middle of March.

And so it goes.

When North Carolina and Dayton stepped on the Madison Square Garden floor on Thursday night, the chatter in the arena among seasoned basketball people - including ESPN's Ron Franklin, whose own future (in broadcasting) is as uncertain as the NIT's future - was that this could be the last NIT, and hence, the very last NIT championship game.

If that is indeed the case, the ending was appropriate.

Dayton, if you didn't know, has made a living at this event, which - for many years - was considered a very big deal in college basketball. Through the 1970s, the NCAA Tournament didn't include very many teams. It wasn't until 1979 that the event expanded beyond 32 teams, to 40. Because the Big Dance wasn't so big for many years, a lot of high-caliber ballclubs were able to participate in the NIT, making it a comparable showcase for college basketball and a prize that - while not quite as coveted as the NCAA title - was still thought of as a considerable accomplishment.

Dayton's place in this - the possible final chapter of the NIT - is appropriate, then, because the Flyers have been one of the schools that made a living at the NIT. UD won this event in 1962 and 1968, and has made more appearances than any school other than St. John's. With this championship against North Carolina on Thursday, Dayton won its 40th NIT game, putting it second on the all-time list (also behind St. John's). The trophy was Dayton's third at this event, tying the Flyers for third place in NIT history alongside Michigan. Only St. John's (with six NIT crowns) and Bradley (with four) have cut down the nets more times in New York. If the NIT did end on April Fools Day of 2010, Dayton affirmed its presence as an historically appropriate winner.

Just how did the Flyers soar past North Carolina? Two words: Chris Johnson. The "high Flyer" made the biggest and most athletically impressive plays of the evening. Johnson - a sophomore swingman from Columbus, Ohio - will return next season and make UD head coach Brian Gregory a very happy man. Johnson also put a smile on his coach's face inside The World's Most Famous Arena. In the first half, Johnson ran the floor in transition and finished plays to the delight of a crowd that was entertained by the normally furious tempo on display in this game. In the second half, Johnson simply nailed the biggest shot of the night.

North Carolina, down by 13 at the half, made a strong and steady push in the second half and cut Dayton's double-digit lead to 67-63 on a 3-pointer by hot-shooting swingman Will Graves, who finished with 25 points on the night. On the very next UD possession, Johnson - without flinching or overthinking, as players are wont to do in such situations - banged in a triple of his own to push Dayton's lead back to 70-63 with 3:24 left. Carolina's collective body language sagged after that shot, and UNC never got closer than five points (without possession of the ball, it should be added; the Tar Heels never had another chance to create a one-possession game with a made basket).

North Carolina did begin to show some of the fight that was missing in its dreary ACC season. However, the Flyers - who had flailed and failed in their journey through the Atlantic 10 - found an extra ounce of resourcefulness in this title tilt, and that's why the 2010 NIT trophy now rests in Southwestern Ohio.

The only question remaining is this: Will that NIT trophy - sitting in a case at the University of Dayton's athletic department - be the last one ever handed out?

By: Matt Zemek
ACC Fans Senior Staff Writer