NCAA Basketball: An ode to The Basketball Classic (2022-2022)

As the NCAA basketball postseason commenced in earnest in the middle of March 2023, it felt right to be excited. The first NCAA Tournament games were a blast, there were big upsets in the NIT, and the CBI was only days away. The only thing missing was The Basketball Classic.

Apparently, the fourth postseason tournament was a one-year wonder (if it can be called that), subjected to the waste bin of history alongside the CIT.

The Basketball Classic is not being held this year, but the upstart postseason college basketball tournament is not forgotten.

Most were caught of guard by the absence of TBC this season. On Sunday and Monday, social media was clamoring for a bracket that was never going to come. Some floated the tourney as a place for Antoine Davis to break Pete Maravich’s scoring record. Turns out, wasn’t an option – long live Pistol Pete’s mark.

In fact, the website for The Basketball Classic doesn’t appear to have changed since the end of last year’s tournament. It’s a time capsule into what could have been.

Its one opportunity to make an impression on the college basketball postseason may have been squandered. But while The Basketball Classic is gone, it shall live on forever in the hearts of college basketball fanatics.

The first and last annual tournament was held last year, using the old NIT format of setting the matches after each round. Most may not have seen that, since it was streamed exclusively on ESPN+.

The 32-team tournament (actually, only 18 played) was founded by CollegeInsider.com, the same company that founded the CIT. The tournament had a solid decade run before being upended by the pandemic. After two years away, it came back with its rebrand.

Presented by Eracism, the tournament launched on Pi Day and ended on April Fool’s Day. No power conference schools participated in the contest, but that just gave the tournament a chance to let some of the lesser known figures in the sport shine.

Like Davis. Okay, he may not have been lesser known at the time, but he still got to show off in the tournament, dropping 24 points in a First Round contest against the artists formerly known as Dunk City. Florida Gulf Coast won that game because Davis was outplayed by Travis Dunn-Martin, who dropped 33.

Or Souley Boum. Before he was a member of Sweet Sixteen squad Xavier, he was the star of the UTEP Miners. In UTEP’s dominant First Round victory over Western Illinois in The Basketball Classic last year, he recorded just the second triple-double in program history. Those who watched had a better sense of what to expect from the Musketeers this year.

The winner of the tournament was Fresno State, who topped Coastal Carolina 85-74 in the title game. On their way to the championship, the Bulldogs also beat Eastern Washington, Youngstown State, and Southern Utah.

Sure, that’s not exactly a murderer’s row of opponents. But Fresno State is a team that has only made one NCAA Tournament in the last 16 years and has just one postseason title, taking the NIT in 1983. Now the school gets to add to the collection.

And that’s the thing that was most lovable about The Basketball Classic. It was a chance to watch more kids shine for a longer period of time, living out their dreams on the basketball court.

The Basketball Classic may not have been the flashiest or most prestigious postseason tournament college basketball has ever seen, but it was there when we needed it. It’s never a bad thing to have more college basketball on our collective calendar.

So wave goodbye to The Basketball Classic. We hardly knew you, but you mattered and you are missed.