Portland State: champs without a chance

Despite winning their conference, they weren't selected for postseason play

Guard Jaylin Henderson was named first team All-Big Sky Conference.

The local media’s failure to point out the Portland State Vikings men’s basketball team’s amazing year is intolerable. They won the Big Sky Conference championship with a 13-5 record and had the best overall record the league (20-11).

But they didn’t win the year-end conference tournament. Idaho, a team that was 9-9 in conference games, won the tournament and was picked by the NCAA selection committee for the 64-team March Madness bracket. PSU was left out.

The NIT picked 32 teams for its tournament, but again, PSU was left out. The CBI tournament shut down this year, so PSU was left out of all post-season play.

What a travesty for the players, coaches, students, community and university. This is what’s wrong with college sports today, which is about media market presence, athlete funding and favoritism to major markets and conferences. It used to be about amateur athletics.

If you win your conference, you should get a bid to one of the three postseason tournaments. A full season of accomplishment should not be overridden by a brief conference tournament. Perhaps conference tournaments should be discontinued.

I am not happy about the outcome for PSU, an exciting team with a great young coach and the university’s and community’s support. This is not right and it’s time to fix it.

Ken Thrasher went to PSU in 1967-68 before graduating from Oregon State University. He served many years on the PSU Foundation board.