Jade Carter
INDIANAPOLIS — Perhaps the most notable Cinderella playing in Indianapolis this week went down on Thursday night.
Certainly none of the four teams playing at Lucas Oil Stadium in Saturday’s NCAA Tournament Final Four qualifies as a Cinderella by March Madness standards. But across town at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse, Illinois State saw its season end with an 88-66 loss to Auburn in the NIT semifinals.
As a No. 4 seed in the 32-team tournament, the Redbirds were the underdog in a semifinal round that featured three No. 1 seeds. After its win, Auburn will meet Tulsa in the NIT title game Sunday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Tulsa took down New Mexico 74-69 in the first semifinal Thursday.
For Illinois State, the NIT semifinal provided a big-time platform in a historic venue and on ESPN. Coach Ryan Pedon hopes it’s the next step for a program that has improved its win total in each of his four years at the helm.
“It’s great for our guys to be able to see what it looks like when you do get to that stage,” Pedon said. “Auburn’s a really good team, really well coached. I think this experience can do a lot of good for our program as a whole but also individually for the guys coming back.”
Auburn went to the NCAA Final Four a year ago and is now led by former coach Bruce Pearl’s son Steven Pearl after his father’s retirement in September. The Tigers were one of the first bubble teams left out of the NCAA Tournament’s field of 68 on Selection Sunday.
The Tigers were the only power conference team remaining in the NIT field, and they played like the better team Thursday. Auburn (21-16) forced Illinois State (23-13) into 11 first-half turnovers and built a 13-point lead at the break.
When it was all said and done, Illinois State had turned the ball over 18 times, and Auburn had scored 26 points off turnovers.
“That right there itself separated ourselves from them,” Auburn guard Tahaad Pettiford said. “It just made offense for us easier.”
Auburn guard Keyshawn Hall led all scorers with 24 points. Illinois State guard Ty’Reek Coleman, a freshman out of Aurora and Waubonsie Valley High, led the Redbirds with 17 points.
Auburn advances to its first NIT title game. The Tigers’ blitz Thursday night left an impression on their opponent.
“That was an NCAA Tournament-caliber team, no question,” Pedon said. “Not bubble. They were that good. So I give them credit.”
With the emergence of Fox Sports’ College Basketball Crown postseason tournament, fewer and fewer power conference teams are playing in the NIT anymore, long the preferred tournament for teams that don’t make March Madness.
But Auburn is showing that big-time programs still can benefit from playing in the historic tournament.
“We took a really difficult situation, not getting in on Selection Sunday, and I think we turned it into a positive,” Steven Pearl said. “They’re playing with a level of joy that is really good for me as a coach to see.”
For Illinois State, the loss marked a tough end to a season that didn’t always go according to plan. With three of their top four scorers returning, the Redbirds entered the season as the Missouri Valley preseason favorites. They wound up finishing third in the conference and exiting the MVC Tournament in the quarterfinals.
Pedon and his team weren’t even sure if they were going to be included in the NIT. But once they were, a 21-point opening-round win over Kent State set in motion a postseason run that would lead them to Indianapolis.
Illinois State then had to go on the road to beat Wake Forest and Dayton on its way to the semifinals. The program was playing in its first NIT semifinal after quarterfinal runs in 1977, 1987 and 1996. Thursday night also marked the first time the program had played a men’s basketball game in the month of April since 1899.
“Any time you get to play postseason basketball and extra basketball after the regular season, it’s a blessing,” said junior guard Ty Pence, who scored 13 points. “It’s been really fun to play more with our seniors.”
Pedon coached the Redbirds to their first back-to-back 20-win seasons since 2008-09 and 2009-10. The program went 22-14 a year ago and won the CBI postseason tournament.
Thursday’s result wasn’t what they had hoped for when they made the trip to Indianapolis, but Pedon believes back-to-back postseason runs has his program trending in the right direction.
“I think what we’re building is special,” Pedon said. “I just, I do. I’m still holding onto the old model. Maybe in two years I’ll be completely jaded, I don’t know, but I’m going to fight like hell to continue to build a program — not a team, a program — that, we’re not going to retain everybody, but that is able to regenerate itself in a consistent fashion year after year after year to put ourselves in position to compete for the championship in our conference.”
WNIT championship game
Illinois State (24-13) will play Marshall (27-9) in the WNIT final at 2 p.m. Saturday in Huntington, W.Va. The Redbirds defeated South Dakota 67-60 in a semifinal Wednesday in Vermillion, S.D. Both teams are chasing their first WNIT title.
