Oregon State part of CBI
Princeton, NJ (Sports Network) - Oregon State has been chosen to return to defend its title in the 16-team College Basketball Invitational, which starts Tuesday night.
Oregon State, with head coach Craig Robinson, the brother-in-law of U.S. President Barack Obama, will start the tournament with a home game against Boston University on Wednesday. The Beavers go into the event with a 14-17 record, including defeats in four of their last six games.
"We are very excited to have the opportunity to continue our season and play a first round game in front of our home crowd," Robinson said. "It's a great reward for our players to be selected to the tournament and I know Boston University will be a great challenge. We're looking forward to getting back to work on Monday and preparing for the first game."
This is the third year for the tournament, which features a single-elimination format until the best-of-three championship series. The Beavers topped Texas- El Paso in three games last year, and Tulsa did the same against Bradley in 2008.
The tournament gets started with a pair of games on Tuesday as Indiana State visits Saint Louis, and VCU plays on the road against George Washington. On Wednesday, Akron hosts Green Bay, Morehead State is home vs. Colorado State, Charleston visits Eastern Kentucky, IUPUI is at Hofstra, and Princeton hosts Duquesne.
Arizona (16-15), which had its record streak of 25 straight NCAA Tournament appearances broken, was offered a spot in the CBI, but turned down the invitation.
"That's really not what our program is about right now," Arizona coach Sean Miller said. "The goal here is to make the NCAA Tournament and be in a position for a seed that can advance and can threaten for the Final Four. I'm going to sound the exact way I did when I got here. The building process and doing things the right way is at the forefront. In another six months, a culture will be developed, a way of doing things will be developed. Not only by miles, but sometimes in inches we'll continue to improve and emerge on the national level and within our conference. It's going to take a lot of hard work and patience. Part of the story is written and there is a lot of hard work to go."
