The 2019 College Basketball Invitational bracket was revealed Sunday night, and is headlined by a pair of high major schools. Here’s how it sets up: The elephants in the room are clearly West Virginia and DePaul. Not since Colorado played in the 2015 tournament has the CBI had a team from a power five conference or the Big East in its field. Neither enters with a winning record, but the 15-15 Blue Demons and 14-20 Mountaineers add a special kind of flavor to this year’s tournament. Both are also playing relatively well, with West Virginia reaching the Big 12 Tournament semifinals, and DePaul picking up March wins against Georgetown and St. John’s. Elsewhere, there are a trio of WAC teams including one — Cal Baptist — in its first year as a Division I program. Behind a powerful backcourt duo in sophomore Milan Acquaah and senior Jordan Heading the Lancers were able to post a solid inaugural campaign (16-14, 7-9). They’ll host an all-SoCal matchup against James Batemon and a Loyola Marymount team that opened the season at 12-2 with non-conference wins over UNLV, Georgetown and Boise State. Under first-year coach Griff Aldrich, Longwood will make its first Division I postseason appearance, and gets a home date with Southern Miss. A Lancers team with just two seniors in its rotation saw an eight-game improvement under Aldrich, who at one time in his career practiced law while moonlighting as an AAU coach. He talked about what the opportunity means in a release. “As we continue to seek to establish a strong foundation for this program, being selected to play in the postseason is a special milestone. With so many underclassmen on our roster, this tournament will provide our program with an opportunity to continue to compete for championships and also help us tangibly raise our expectations and the standard for Longwood basketball.” Coastal Carolina returns to the CBI two years after falling to Wyoming in the best of three championship round. The Chanticleers went 9-9 in the Sun Belt, and are led by explosive senior forward Zac Cuthbertson. Teams must pay an entry fee to participate in the CBI, which can dissuade some from taking part. The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported that host teams will pay the CBI $40,000 to host the first two rounds this year. The tournament has been a springboard for teams in recent years as Loyola Chicago and Nevada won the championship in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Last year’s winner, North Texas, started this season at 20-4, but faded down the stretch. The runner-up, San Francisco, enjoyed a 21-win season of its own and held legitimate at-large aspirations at one point. This year’s crop of teams will hope that success in the CBI portends 20-win seasons like that a year from now.<doc-sep>Oregon State’s final game of the 2018-19 season turned out to be a 73-58 loss to Colorado in the Pac-12 tournament quarterfinals after the Beavers name didn’t appear on any postseason tournament brackets Sunday. OSU (18-13) was out of contention for an NCAA Tournament berth, but had hoped to attract some interest from the 32-team National Invitation Tournament. The NIT announced its field late Sunday afternoon, and it included Colorado, but not the Beavers. The College Basketball Invitational (CBI) was a possibility, but the Beavers chose not to participate in that pay-for-play tournament. OSU has played in the CBI previously, winning it in 2009. But Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle and athletic director Scott Barnes have generally not been in favor of playing in the CBI, which charges a five-figure fee to the school hosting games. The 16-team CBI this year includes schools such as West Virginia, Loyola Marymount and DePaul. Oregon State now turns its attention to the makeup of the 2019-20 roster. The Beavers lose two seniors in Stephen Thompson Jr. and Gligorije Rakocevic. A decision about the future of junior Tres Tinkle has yet to be decided. Tinkle, who will complete his degree this quarter, could elect to return for a fifth year, as he missed most of the 2016-17 season with a foot injury. Testing the NBA waters or playing overseas is also an option. As of Sunday night, Wayne Tinkle said he has not had a lengthy discussion with his son about his playing future. Oregon State signed three players during the early signing period in guards Jarod Lucas and Gianni Hunt and small forward Julien Franklin. All three are rated as three-star prospects by 247sports.com. Also eligible next season is 6-10 junior Payton Dastrup, a transfer from Brigham Young. The Beavers have two scholarship openings as freshmen Jack Wilson and Jordan Campbell left the program this season. --Nick Daschel | ndaschel@oregonian.com | @nickdaschel Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.<doc-sep>Here’s your thread for the night of basketball. Indiana’s playing! I guess that’s exciting! NCAA Tournament First Four 5:40pm | TruTV | FDU -2 | O/U 149 8:10pm | TruTV | Bel -3 | O/U 155 Watch Temple-Belmont so you know if you should pick Maryland or Belmont to advance to the Round of 32. That’s about all I’ve got. B1G in the NIT [1] Indiana Hoosiers vs. [8] St. Francis (PA) Red Flash 6pm | ESPN | IU -18 | O/U 147 We might be back to talk a little more how Nebraska is pretty openly flirting with Fred Hoiberg before finishing the season or firing Tim Miles...it feels pretty shitty to me, but I’m not Bill Moos. In the meantime, the Hoosiers are devaluing Assembly Hall by playing host to up to three games in the National Invitational Tournament, with a potential three-fer of the Red Flash, either Providence or Arkansas, and regional final with the other side of the bracket, headed by 2-seed Clemson and 3-seed Furman. The Red Flash are here thanks to their winning the Northeast Conference regular season over NCAA Tournament 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson by virtue of going 2-0 against NEC fourth-place team Robert Morris (FDU went 1-1) but losing the conference championship final to the Knights. That’s Fairleigh Dickinson, in case you’re not up on the mascots of the NEC. Shame on you. But yeah. Anyways, SFPA is...well, they’re really bad. Like, really really bad. 261st in Kenpom, with a bottom-30 defense and slightly above-average pace and offense. On the other hand, they crash the boards with enthusiasm (20th in total orebs), led by junior G Keith Braxton (16.2 ppg, 9.8 rpg), and don’t turn the ball over a ton. I’ve written 200 words on Indiana-St. Francis (PA) in the NIT. That’s far too many. Other games to watch? NIT Games 8pm | ESPN | Texas -8.5 | O/U 152 8pm | ESPNU | Creighton -8.5 | O/U 136 10pm | ESPN2 | Colorado -4.5 | O/U 139 ESPN’s actually got a pretty good slate of ‘em tonight. I’ll be going from IU-SFPA to Temple-Belmont, but I’m going to have an eye (or a laptop) on South Dakota State heading to Austin to visit Texas. I don’t know that Mike Daum & Co. can handle the Shaka Smart Havoc Experience, but with rumors that Smart’s on the way out, we might have a Longhorns club that’s not really...into it. I’ll give Loyola one more chance, if just because I’m hoping Porter Moser will be the next coach of Northwestern. And who am I to ignore 10pm basketball? I won’t squint too hard at Dayton visiting Colorado. But wait! The CBI and CIT also kick off tonight—well, actually, the CIT kicked off last night with NJIT hosting the Quinnipiac and taking them down, 92-81. A number of notes here, because shut up, I can:<doc-sep>
The 2019 CBI bracket has been revealed and the tournament will feature West Virginia and South Florida. Get your printable bracket here. When college basketball fans, both die-hards and the casual viewers, think of March Madness, they most often think of the NCAA Tournament. Heck, they might even think about the NIT. However, those aren’t the only two postseason college hoops postseason tournaments that take place. The next biggest event in that hierarchy is no doubt the CBI, which also revealed their 2019 bracket on Selection Sunday. Several teams seen on the 2019 CBI bracket were no doubt hoping to receive an invitation from the NIT, but obviously weren’t so lucky. Two of those teams are obviously the headliners of this tournament as Bob Huggin’s West Virginia Mountaineers out of the Big 12 and the South Florida Bulls both had the chops to be in the NIT conversation. Other teams that are recognizable are certainly involved in the 2019 CBI tournament, such as the DePaul Blue Demons, Brown Bears, Southern Mississippi Eagles and even the UAB Blazers. These teams, including West Virginia and South Florida too, may not have had a shot at making the NCAA Tournament, but they put together impressive enough résumés to not have their seasons end just yet. Thus, they now have that opportunity. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the full 2019 CBI bracket, which will get underway on Wednesday, March 20. For a printable version of the bracket, simply click on the image below and you’ll be taken to the page. This certainly isn’t exactly a star-studded affair in the 2019 CBI bracket. Having said that, these games are often filled with teams trying to make something out of a season that went worse than they’d hoped for. As such, college basketball fans will certainly want to tune in and see what’s in store for the tournament from the first round all the way up to the final.