UPDATE: Apparently there are two tournaments at the Orleans Hotel in Vegas. One is over Thanksgiving, and is called the "Las Vegas Invitational", which is the tournament that Creighton was to have played in this year. The field this year includes North Carolina and Louisville. Next years' slate includes West Virginia, Iowa, Kentucky and K-State.
However, and this is where the confusion comes in, there is another tournament over Christmas called the "Las Vegas Classic", and this is the tourney where Creighton will be playing next year. I guess when they mutually decided to bump their appearance back a year, this is the tourney they were scheduled into. The field this year is clearly a notch below the "Invitational" field: Alabama, Iowa State, Missouri State, and Purdue. And next year, its Creighton, Fresno State, DePaul and St. Louis.
Hmm, you learn something new every day!
Back in May, Creighton pulled out of the 2008 Las Vegas Invitational. The tournament would have given them two home games against random sub-150 RPI teams, but provided they could beat those patsies, it also would have given them a Las Vegas matchup against North Carolina. Yes, THAT North Carolina.
Citing their lack of experience and a desire to play in the tournament with a stronger squad, the Jays pulled out. Here was AD Bruce Rasmussen's statement at the time:
"The Vegas trip is over," CU Athletic Director Bruce Rasmussen said. "They (Vegas) want to get as good a game as they could get for North Carolina. I think we are going to be pretty good by January or February, but by November we'll be pretty young. So we said we don't object to it if you can find somebody else. If you don't, we'll play. It wasn't we [sic] were trying to get out of it."
Now, this certainly rankled a lot of feathers, so to speak. In fact, the fanbase was pretty much split down the middle -- some people thought it was a horrible idea to chicken out of playing UNC, some people accepted the Hilltop's reasoning. I was in the latter camp, but only because of the promise of a 2009 Vegas trip against similarly stellar opposition, albeit with a deeper, more experienced Jays team.
Here's part of what I wrote back in May on the topic:
"My hunch -- and that's all it is, a hunch -- is that Dana Altman and staff decided that a trip to Canada and the extra practices it includes would better serve this particular team. So they told the Vegas organizers they would love to come play UNC, but if Vegas found another school to replace them, CU wouldn't be against backing out and coming back next year. I have no magic inside sources on that, it's just my gut feeling."
Again, that was based on the assumption that when the Jays did make the Vegas trip in 2009, their opposition would be UNC-esque. So you can imagine my consternation when I saw the following article in the Fresno Bee on Tuesday, containing this little nugget of information:
"Also on Monday, coach Steve Cleveland said the Bulldogs have been invited to play in the 2008 Las Vegas Classic, an eight-team, four-game tournament. Fresno State, Creighton, St. Louis and DePaul, Cleveland said, are the likely host teams for the tournament, which would start with two games apiece at the host schools then continue at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas."
Ahem. Fresno State, St. Louis and DePaul? You're kidding, right? Two of those teams (Fresno and DePaul) have already been on CU's schedule recently, and the other is a team that hasn't been on the schedule but is of similar caliber.
Pardon my language, but this sucks. Don't get me wrong, all four headline teams are good programs, but lets be honest here: would you rather play St. Louis or Kansas (a participant last year)? Fresno State or Florida (also a participant last year)? DePaul or North Carolina (a participant this year)? For that matter, would the other three rather play Creighton or Louisville (another participant this year)?
This is no longer the marquee holiday tournament we were all promised. No, this is a gussied-up, neutral court Bracket Buster. A replay of last year's Rainbow Classic (Rainbow Classic Part Deux!), minus Santa Claus on play-by-play and his endearing way of pronouncing cray-TONN.
My position on pulling out this year remains unchanged. I agreed with their decision to go to Canada instead back in May, and I agree with it now. My issue now is why bother playing in Vegas next year either? Why travel to the desert to play teams you can play anywhere? The purpose of going to an exempt tourney is to play teams who won't play you anywhere else.
That's clearly not the case here, and I'll be curious to hear the Hilltop's side of the story. Were they promised a stronger field? Or did they back out this year knowing the field would be this vanilla in '09? My guess is we'll never know. Either way, I'm not happy, and I'm now going to go retrieve my shoe from across the room.
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