NIT Bracket 2012: At Least Washington Will Get to Be a Top Seed Somewhere

There's no use crying over failed NCAA Tournament dreams, especially when you have an NIT Tournament to play in—which is precisely the situation Washington could find itself in, come Sunday night.

The Huskies, to some degree, are a picture-perfect example of a bubble team that will inevitably be passed over. They have those tell-tale early-season losses against teams like St. Louis and South Dakota State.

They were the best team in a borderline-weak conference. They posted a decent but not great regular-season record (21-10). They are notorious for starting out slow and finishing sloppy, losing tight conference games they really needed to win.

Take, for example, Washington's final two games of the season. A win against UCLA in the final regular-season matchup could've locked up a spot in the tournament, but in a matchup that was tight the whole way, Washington's Darnell Grant missed a three-pointer with 13 seconds left that would've given his team the lead.

Then, of course, there was the heartbreaking loss to Oregon State in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament. The top-seeded Huskies were up by four with one minute left, but they missed 5-of-6 free throws that gave Oregon State enough second (and third and fourth) chances to win.

Getting bounced in the first round of your conference tournament is certainly not a good sign to the NCAA selection committee.

Granted, it will be kind of odd to see the regular-season conference champion snubbed, but it's happened. See: Boston College, 2002-03. I was watching in tears.

If one or two games had gone differently, it would be a different story for the Huskies. Do they deserve to dance? Maybe. Are there other teams from stacked conferences that deserve it more? Probably.

And that could be exactly what gets Washington a top seed—in the NIT.