Freefall: Gophers get left out of NIT, too

Published 7:54 am Monday, March 14, 2011

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota’s late-season slide was sharp enough to keep the Gophers from even getting in the NIT.

After losing 10 of their last 11 games, the Gophers finished with a 17-14 record that gave them no chance of an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

But they fell far enough to miss out on the NIT, too, leaving a team that was ranked 16th in The Associated Press poll the last week in January out of the postseason completely. The fields were announced Sunday night.

There are two other postseason tournaments for Division I teams, the CIT and the CBI, but they’re primarily geared toward the low to mid-major conferences.

This is the first time that coach Tubby Smith hasn’t appeared in the postseason since 1993, when he was at Tulsa.