Rice basketball has accepted an invitation to participate in the 2022 College Basketball Invitation Tournament, to take place from March 19 to 23.
The season isn’t over quite yet for Rice basketball. After falling to North Texas in the third round of the Conference USA Tournament, the Owls have accepted a bid to the College Basketball Invitation Tournament (CBI). The Tournament will take place from March 19 to 23 with all games at the Daytona Beach Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, FL.
This is the Owls’ second appearance in the CBI. Rice previously made an appearance in 2017 where they defeated San Francisco in the opening round before falling to Utah Valley in the quarterfinals. At that time, the champion of the CBI was determined by a best-of-three series between semifinalists. This year’s tournament reverts to the more traditional single-elimination format throughout all rounds.
Opening round games will be played on Mar. 19 and Mar. 20 with the remaining rounds taking place over the next three days. Should a team play on the second day of opening round games and advance to the finals, they would play four games in four days.
Rice basketball head coach Scott Pera released this statement regarding the news:
“Being invited to the CBI is another positive step for our program. We have improved our win total again this year. Our team has battled all year long and achieved some big wins including Conference USA Tournament wins in back-to-back years for the first time since 2004-05. We have built a sustainable, winning program and to be invited to play in a postseason tournament is another great step as we continue our goal towards playing in March Madness.”
The entire field will be announced exclusively on Twitter on Sunday, March 13 following the announcements of the NCAA Tournament and NIT fields. Like Rice, other programs have already announced their intention to participate. At this time, those additional participants include Troy, VMI, Boston and Asheville.
Update: The 2022 field has been announced. Rice is the No. 14 Seed and will take on Ohio in the first round on Saturday.
Full @CBITourney bracket pic.twitter.com/W0adKNOxDJ
— The Roost (@AtTheRoost) March 14, 2022
