GREENSBORO -- North Carolina wants to play in the NIT, but does the NIT want North Carolina?
Les Robinson, N.C. State's former athletic director and a member of the eight-person NIT selection committee, said Friday morning he is not allowed to reveal who is on his list of 32 teams that he will submit to begin the selection process. (Each committee member submits a list, and they begin forming the field from there.)
"I would be surprised if they [the Tar Heels] weren't on the board, but I can say that about 25, 30 teams," he said.
N.C. State is probably in the mix, too.
Robinson, who was preparing to fly to Indianapolis to meet with the committee, said that beating Georgia Tech on Thursday night would have helped UNC's chances, "but the thing is, a bunch of good teams lost in the first round."
In its favor, Robinson said, North Carolina has a .500 record (16-16), a "respectable" RPI (No. 85 as of Monday, according to collegerpi.com), and some close losses. The NIT uses the same procedure as the NCAA to select its 32-team field, which means injuries are taken into account.
That could help UNC, which had nine players miss at least one game due to injury.What could hurt the Tar Heels - as well as Charlotte - though, is the NIT's policy to automatically invite the regular-season champion of any NCAA Division I conference that doesn't make the NCAA tournament. Before Friday's games, there were already eight automatic NIT qualifiers: Kent State, Weber State, Troy, Coastal Carolina, Quinnipiac, Jacksonville, Stony Brook and Jackson State.
That left 24 at-large invitations going into Friday's games.
Tar Heels coach Roy Williams, who never has coached in the NIT, said his team would accept a bid, if asked.
"Are we worthy enough to be invited? That I don't know," he said after Thursday's loss to Georgia Tech. "There's people ... that get to make those decisions, maybe that won't even invite us. But if somebody invites me to go play, we're going to go play."
Tar Heels players know there are fans who think the Tar Heels - who won the NCAA title last season - should turn down the NIT and end the season at .500.
"To those people, honestly, to those people, I would say that they can't have their way all the time," sophomore point guard Larry Drew II said. "Some people are just so spoiled, man. Especially Carolina fans, just because, you know, the whole tradition. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just the way it is. But to those fans: Yes, we haven't been performing up to the standards of the usual North Carolina basketball team, but we can't be perfect all the time, and we're human, too."
UNC wouldn't be the first team to win the NCAA title one year and play in the NIT the next. Florida played in the NIT in 2008 after winning back-to-back national titles.
