Sepich: CBI run helps younger players develop

The Pitt men’s basketball team will still be playing during the NCAA Tournament’s final… The Pitt men’s basketball team will still be playing during the NCAA Tournament’s final weekend.

However, the Panthers won’t be in New Orleans — the host city of this year’s Final Four — competing for a national championship.

And they certainly aren’t the focus of the college basketball world.

Instead, Pitt’s season will end tonight at the Petersen Events Center with the third and final game of an unorthodox best-of-three championship series in a tournament most Panthers fans had never heard of before this season: the College Basketball Invitational.

Less than a month ago, on what is often referred to as Selection Sunday, Pitt’s fate was uncertain. Unsurprisingly, Pitt’s disappointing 17-16 record eliminated the team from NCAA Tournament at-large consideration, but after the National Invitation Tournament also declined to send Pitt an invitation, it appeared the Panthers’ season was over.

Then word began circulating that Pitt had agreed to compete in the newer, much less prestigious CBI tournament. The news was met with a common reaction: What in the world is the CBI?

Initially, many fans questioned Pitt’s decision to play in the CBI, but the last two weeks have proven to be a positive learning experience for coaches, players and even fans who didn’t know that tournaments beyond the NCAA and NIT existed.

From a purely game-oriented perspective, the CBI’s brief four-year history validates the idea that postseason tournaments of any kind help collegiate programs by providing valuable tournament experience and extra games to younger athletes.

In 2010, few paid attention to VCU’s impressive run to a CBI championship. But just 12 months later, VCU became America’s Cinderella team when the Rams remarkably reached the Final Four as a No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

This season, Oregon and Creighton — the 2011 CBI championship series finalists — improved their win total by a combined nine games from the previous campaign as the Ducks and Bluejays competed for their respective conference championships.

A few of Pitt’s younger players have already shown improvement in the extra games.

Sophomore forward Talib Zanna has been the most consistent Panther in the CBI, averaging almost 12 points and eight rebounds in the five contests. Sophomore J.J. Moore has posted a solid 10.8 points per game during the tournament.

Fellow sophomore Lamar Patterson said he believes these games have instilled a more aggressive mentality in Zanna and Moore.

“This tournament has shown that a lot of guys can step up when they’re called, like J.J. [Moore] and Talib [Zanna],” Patterson said. “They weren’t as confident during the season, but I feel like they’re getting their confidence right now and that’s going to be perfect going into next year.”

Following a dramatic victory over Washington State on Wednesday that forced tonight’s decisive game three, Pitt senior forward Nasir Robinson said the Panthers want to be one of the few teams in the country fortunate enough to close the season out with a victory.

“We wanted to play in this,” he said. “We could’ve easily backed out of this tournament, but it was the decision of all of the players and coaches to play and now we want to finish this out.”

Regardless of whether Pitt wins or loses tonight, the players and coaches deserve an immense amount of credit for not giving up on this season when so many others did.

That refuse-to-quit attitude might pay huge dividends in the near future. Just ask VCU.