The Tribune

By RENALDO DORSETT

Sports Reporter

rdorsett@tribunemedia.net

IT IS not the NCAA Tournament but one Bahamian NCAA Division I basketball player will still have an opportunity for a postseason appearance.

Tavario Miller and the Texas A and M Aggies accepted a bid to play in the National Invitational Tournament, played at various regional venues, March 17-April 2.

The Aggies (20-11) are the No. 2 seed in the Temple Quadrant of the tournament and will host No. 7 seed Montana (20-12) 8pm tonight at Reed Arena in College Station, Texas. The game will be broadcast live on ESPNU.

It marks the 20th post-season tournament appearance for the Aggies after they learned that they did not receive an at large bid for the NCAA tournament.

The winner will advance to the second round to face the winner of Central Michigan/Louisiana Tech.

Aggies head coach Billie Kennedy expressed the disappointed sentiments of his team. “Obviously, we’re disappointed that we are not in the NCAA Tournament but our guys practiced well yesterday and are excited about being in the NIT,”  Kennedy said.

The NIT trip is the seventh in programme history and the first since 2005 when the Aggies advanced to the tournament’s third round and parlayed that success into trips to the NCAA Tournament each of the next six seasons.

As a sophomore, Miller improved his production and had several career highs.

In a November win over the Northwestern St Demons, Miller set a new career-high with 15 points on 6-6 shooting from the field and also added six rebounds.

It was the first time he reached double-figures in his career, surpassing his previous high of nine points against LSU last season. He reached double figures in scoring for the second time in his career in a February matchup against Ole Miss when he finished with 13 points and six rebounds.

On the regular season he averaged 2.5 points and 3.2 rebounds per game.

In his freshman season he averaged 1.8 points and 2.4 rebounds in just under 10 minutes per game.

In that freshman season, the Aggies accepted a bid to the College Basketball Invitational, seen as the third tier of postseason tournaments.

The CBI was created in 2007 by the Gazelle Group, selects 16 teams not chosen to compete in the NIT or NCAA Tournament and competes directly with the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament for teams.

The NIT is known as the second tier postseason tournament behind the main event, “March Madness.”

The tournament was founded in 1938 and the final rounds are played at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Colorado State, Old Dominion, Richmond and Temple highlight the 32-team NIT field that was released on Sunday.

The field features 23 teams with at least 20 wins, 12 automatic qualifiers and representation from 22 of the 32 Division I conferences.