Look up and down the 2016 NIT men?s basketball bracket and you?ll notice a trend.
Florida and North Florida will face each other.
Ohio State and Akron will do battle.
Monmouth and Bucknell will play, as will St. Bonaventure and Wagner, as well as Georgia and Belmont. For the most part, the selection committee obviously tried to keep teams in a somewhat geographical relationship in the opening round.
So where will IPFW go for its first ever trip in this event?
San Diego, of course.
The NIT has assigned the No. 7-seed Mastodons (24-9) to travel 2,220 miles to face No. 2-seed San Diego State (25-9) at 10 p.m. EST (ESPN3) Tuesday. It?s a good thing that the IPFW players and coaches don?t fret over such minutiae.
The Mastodons recently spent the Summit League Tournament playing South Dakota and North Dakota State just short drives from their homes, and second-year coach Jon Coffman said at the time his team embraces such challenges.
?We kind of take the Kobe Bryant, villain-hero mantra,? Coffman said. ?It?s tough on the road. It is what it is and it gets guys fired up.?
The Mastodons have prepared for this type of trip, perhaps not on 48 hours notice, but to a degree. They have already played a game mere minutes from the Pacific Ocean earlier this season and beat Cal Poly, and over the course of this season, the team has traveled nearly 20,000 miles.
A few weeks ago, Coffman spoke of his team being a traveling show that was enhancing the university brand with its vast exposure.
During the recent Summit League Tournament, Coffman said that his players haven?t worried about the bigger picture issues this season; they simply focus on winning the next game, which in this case is a road game against the Aztecs.
?We didn?t talk goals at all this year,? Coffman said. ?It?s a really unique group and I didn?t have to. I didn?t have to talk about goals, didn?t have to talk about the NCAA Tournament, and didn?t have to talk about championships, any of that sort of stuff.
?The culture of our program now is that they are used to winning. They just go. We go one game at a time.?
IPFW was one of 15 automatic qualifiers for this year?s 32-team field, a record, and it earned that bid when it won the regular season title in its conference. The Mastodons were distraught after falling in their conference tournament (especially after holding an 18-point lead against North Dakota State in that loss), but Coffman and his players maintained perspective on the historic achievement of playing in the NIT.
?It?s something that we can look forward to,? IPFW senior captain Joe Reed said at the time. ?It?s not exactly something that we wanted to be looking at right now. But it?s definitely something to go back on and you have to credit the community and this program to put ourselves in a position like that.?
Coffman concurred.
?At the end of the day, the way that the NCAA has set (the NIT) up, for teams that win the regular season to go, it?s pretty special. We?re not getting an at-large bid to the NIT. It?s about other things. Even though our RPI is in the 60s, we?re still probably not getting an at large bid into it. So it?s pretty special to be invited to that and have a chance to play towards getting to New York.
?This is a group, if I was other teams, I wouldn?t want to play us (and) the way we shoot the ball. This is a group that can win a few games and see what happens, no matter what tournament we play in.?
Florida and North Florida will face each other.
Ohio State and Akron will do battle.
Monmouth and Bucknell will play, as will St. Bonaventure and Wagner, as well as Georgia and Belmont. For the most part, the selection committee obviously tried to keep teams in a somewhat geographical relationship in the opening round.
So where will IPFW go for its first ever trip in this event?
San Diego, of course.
The NIT has assigned the No. 7-seed Mastodons (24-9) to travel 2,220 miles to face No. 2-seed San Diego State (25-9) at 10 p.m. EST (ESPN3) Tuesday. It?s a good thing that the IPFW players and coaches don?t fret over such minutiae.
The Mastodons recently spent the Summit League Tournament playing South Dakota and North Dakota State just short drives from their homes, and second-year coach Jon Coffman said at the time his team embraces such challenges.
?We kind of take the Kobe Bryant, villain-hero mantra,? Coffman said. ?It?s tough on the road. It is what it is and it gets guys fired up.?
The Mastodons have prepared for this type of trip, perhaps not on 48 hours notice, but to a degree. They have already played a game mere minutes from the Pacific Ocean earlier this season and beat Cal Poly, and over the course of this season, the team has traveled nearly 20,000 miles.
A few weeks ago, Coffman spoke of his team being a traveling show that was enhancing the university brand with its vast exposure.
During the recent Summit League Tournament, Coffman said that his players haven?t worried about the bigger picture issues this season; they simply focus on winning the next game, which in this case is a road game against the Aztecs.
?We didn?t talk goals at all this year,? Coffman said. ?It?s a really unique group and I didn?t have to. I didn?t have to talk about goals, didn?t have to talk about the NCAA Tournament, and didn?t have to talk about championships, any of that sort of stuff.
?The culture of our program now is that they are used to winning. They just go. We go one game at a time.?
IPFW was one of 15 automatic qualifiers for this year?s 32-team field, a record, and it earned that bid when it won the regular season title in its conference. The Mastodons were distraught after falling in their conference tournament (especially after holding an 18-point lead against North Dakota State in that loss), but Coffman and his players maintained perspective on the historic achievement of playing in the NIT.
?It?s something that we can look forward to,? IPFW senior captain Joe Reed said at the time. ?It?s not exactly something that we wanted to be looking at right now. But it?s definitely something to go back on and you have to credit the community and this program to put ourselves in a position like that.?
Coffman concurred.
?At the end of the day, the way that the NCAA has set (the NIT) up, for teams that win the regular season to go, it?s pretty special. We?re not getting an at-large bid to the NIT. It?s about other things. Even though our RPI is in the 60s, we?re still probably not getting an at large bid into it. So it?s pretty special to be invited to that and have a chance to play towards getting to New York.
?This is a group, if I was other teams, I wouldn?t want to play us (and) the way we shoot the ball. This is a group that can win a few games and see what happens, no matter what tournament we play in.?
