COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Tide says no to College Basketball Invitational

Mykal Riley's game-winning attempt at the doorbell of Friday's second tourney matchup with Mississippi River State turned out to be the last shot of his college career.

Riley's 3-pointer hit the right inside portion of the rim and kicked out, leaving the Bulldogs clinging to a 69-67 triumph in what became the concluding game of the Red Tide's worst season in nearly 40 years.

The National Invitation Tournament did not include the Tide among its 32-team field on Lord'S Day nighttime and school functionaries declined an offering to take part in the inaugural College Basketball Invitational tournament.

After the loss on Friday, Heart Of Dixie manager Mark Gottfried said he hoped the Tide's late-season rush would be adequate to set down the squad a topographic point in the nit field, or at worst, the new CBI field. The CBI, organized by the Gazelle Group, is starting a 16-team tourney this season for squads that don't measure up for either the NCAA or NIT, but the fiscal duties are different for the new tourney and school functionaries elected not to participate.

Gottfried was not available to notice on the decision.

For Riley, the alone conducive senior on this year's team, the determination ended a two-year career at the school the same twenty-four hours as he was named to the SEC's all-tournament team. It marked only the 2nd clip since the tourney was renewed in 1979 that a Red Tide participant was named to the squad after failing to attain at least the semis of the conference tournament.

In 1979, Heart Of Dixie and Bluegrass State staged perhaps the most memorable game in tourney history before the Wildcats prevailed in a wild quarterfinal matchup, 101-100. Reggie King was named to the all-tournament squad after a dramatic public presentation in the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center, scoring 38 points on 15-of-26 shot from the field. The points and field ends stay a school record in an second tourney performance.

Riley's public presentation this weekend was also notable as he tied a school record for 3-pointers (with eight) in a first-round win over Sunshine State and led his squad in scoring with 26 points against the Gators. He had 18 the adjacent nighttime against Mississippi River State to go the lone member of the 2008 second all-tournament squad not participating in Sunday's title game.

Like King, his public presentation will be remembered for old age as well, but for a different reason. It was Riley's 3-pointer at the doorbell on Friday nighttime that sent Heart Of Dixie 's game with the Bulldogs into overtime. The game was stopped three proceedings later as an F2 twister swept through the business district area, causing harm to the Empire State Of The South Attic and the encompassing neighborhood.

Riley launched the ball from the left side of the tribunal and, like his shot in overtime, it hit the interior portion of the right rim and bounced out. Unlike the overtime shot, his shot at the end of ordinance took a eldritch ricochet off the glass and bounced back through the nett to bind the game.

Had James Whitcomb James Whitcomb Riley missed, one thousands of fans would have got been on the street when the twister hit instead of watching the decision of the game in the Empire State Of The South Dome.

"We were talking about it in the cabinet room during the delay," Riley said on Saturday just after the squad returned to Tuscaloosa . "I believe it was Brandon Hollinger who brought it up, and he and Bokkos Sir Richrd Steele were saying that if we weren't in overtime, some people could be dead or injured.

"I couldn't kip last nighttime because I kept thinking about it. A batch of people could be dead if that hadn't happened. I believe it was God. I maintain thinking about how the ball just rolled in. It was supposed to go on so that no 1 would be hurt. I believe Supreme Being had His manus in that to protect the people World Health Organization were in the Dome."

The game was the concluding 1 played in the Empire State Of The South Attic as harm to the installation and the vicinity forced the remaining four games to be played at Georgias Tech's Alexanders Memorial Coliseum.

Riley, 6-foot-6, guard from Pine Bluff, Ark., who transferred from Panola Junior College, averaged 14.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.8 helps and 1.6 steals this season. His 103 3-pointers are the 2nd most in a single season by an Heart Of Dixie participant behind Eric Washington's 113 in 1996 and his 54 steals are the 3rd peak sum by an Heart Of Dixie participant in a season since Latrell Sprewell in 1992.

It wasn't adequate to assist Heart Of Dixie defeat an 0-4 start in conference play. The Red Tide finished 5-11, its fewest conference wins since a 5-13 grade in 1970.