Hawkeyes can be one of few to close with a 'W'

NEW YORK -- A burning issue in the Land of the Hawkeye is whether a deep NIT run is better than a preliminary-round NCAA tournament loss.

I liked the response of Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery when asked about that last week:

"If  you make a long run in this tournament, we could easily have made a long run in that tournament. It's really a question of who you match up against. Sometimes you get in your first round match and you're like that's the worst team we could have played or the best team."

Iowa is good enough to have made it to the second week of the NCAAs if it had been given the right draw. If the Hawkeyes had run into, say, Louisville, on the first weekend, no. But had it been Gonzaga or Georgetown? Why not?

You want to play in the NCAA, not the NIT. Obviously. If you get in the NCAA and lose, well, you at least had your shot at the holy grail. Plus, it means your body of work in the regular season was good.

But since you're in the NIT, go for it. If you win the thing, you've stormed into next season with a 5-game winning streak against good competition. That would make for a cheery offseason.

Plus, outside of the Ivy League (which has no conference tournament), only the NCAA, NIT, CBI and CIT champions end their seasons with wins. It's the best way to walk off into the sunset.

Should Iowa prevail tonight against Baylor in the NIT title game, it would make this a successful season, period. Not one for the all-time annals, and not one anyone without an Iowa tie will spend much time remembering. But it would be closing things out on a super-high note, and make for a lot of good feelings all offseason long.

So who else has had a successful college basketball season in the eyes of their fans?

Everyone in the Big Ten Conference played 18 games to determine a champion, and Indiana was the outright league-champion. But the Hoosiers lost to Wisconsin in the semifinals of the Big Ten tourney, then fell to Syracuse in the NCAA's Sweet 16 as a No. 1 seed.

A (conference) championship season. An excellent season? For sure. A totally satisfying season? Nope.

Michigan missed out on a piece of that Big Ten title because of a layup that rolled off the rim at the last second of its final league game, against Indiana. Then the Wolverines lost to Wisconsin in the Big Ten tourney quarterfinals. In fact, they lost six of their final 12 games before the NCAA tourney began. They lost to Penn State. But here are the Wolverines as the Big Ten's only representative in the Final Four.

Which would you rather be, Big Ten-champ Indiana, Big Ten tourney-champ Ohio State (eliminated in the Elite Eight Saturday by Wichita State), or Final Four-bound Michigan?

Michigan.

Creighton beat Wichita State on the final day of the Missouri Valley Conference's regular-season to be the outright MVC champ. Creighton beat Wichita State in the MVC tournament final. But the Bluejays were ousted from the NCAAs by Duke in the first weekend, while Wichita State is going to the Final Four. Which would you rather be, champion Creighton or league runner-up Wichita State?

The Shockers. Duh.

It's kind of kooky, isn't it? You play all those games to decide who is the best in your league. And it's mostly rendered to trivia once the NCAA starts, even though that tourney is a single-elimination affair chock full of quirky matchups. Creighton had a lower seed than Wichita State, but played Duke on the first weekend. Wichita State -- which did take out No. 1-seed Gonzaga in the first weekend -- played La Salle in the Sweet 16 while Indiana was stuck in the same round with a suddenly hot Syracuse.

Michigan was a Trey Burke miss of a 3-pointer against Kansas from being a Sweet 16 loser, and the Big Ten was that one shot from being shut out of the Final Four though we heard a million times that it was the nation's best basketball league.

Did that mean the Big Ten was overrated? Not at all. Ohio State had a fantastic season. Indiana had a fantastic season. Michigan State had an awfully good season. So did Wisconsin, even though it fell in its first NCAA game, to Mississippi.

The Badgers went 12-6 in the Big Ten, 23-12 overall. They got to the final game of the Big Ten tourney. They beat Indiana and Michigan twice apiece. But because they lost to Ole Miss, meh.

Kansas won the Big 12 regular-season and tournament. If Burke hadn't made that 3-pointer to send the game to overtime, the Jayhawks would have been playing on Sunday for a Final Four berth. So how will this Kansas season be regarded by many? A failure. Different expectations for different folks.

Maybe it's true, maybe winning the NIT is better than, say, winning once in the NCAA tourney. Because the last thing people want to remember is a win. And even better, a championship.