South Alabama HC Richie Riley: 'Inexcusable' for NIT to Rescind 2025 Bracket Invite

South Alabama men's basketball coach Richie Riley is not happy with the National Invitation Tournament.

As Creg Stephenson of AL.com explained, the NIT extended an invitation to the Jaguars on Sunday. UC Riverside was also invited to participate in the tournament but had already committed to playing in the College Basketball Invitational.

However, UC Riverside was able to get out of the CBI and accept the NIT bid, which left South Alabama on the outside with a rescinded invite.

Riley took to social media Monday and responded to an apology from the NIT by saying: "A meaningless apology to the most meaningful group of players I've ever coached! What they did to us last night is inexcusable! These guys in our locker room don't deserve this and it's sad your idea of making it right is a copy and paste apology!"

The coach relayed a conversation he had with Sun Belt Conference commissioner Keith Gill and NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt to Stephenson.

"(Gill) said 'We've had something happen; do you guys want to be in the NIT?' And I said, 'Yeah, it'd be awesome,'" Riley said. "And so we talked for a few more minutes. I said 'this is 100%, we're in, right?' And they said 'yeah congratulations. I'm glad you were able to get in.'

"… I tell them, 'I'm gonna tell my guys.' They're like 'go ahead.' So I tell the team. (Gill and Gavitt) call back. ... Dan's like 'no, UC Riverside is back in. I hate that we had to do this.'

"This is unacceptable. You can't do that."

Riley also said the team and athletic department had already decided South Alabama would only play in the NIT and not the CBI when the confusion happened.

"It's just unfair for our players," the coach said. "We've got a team with zero NIL. They're a bunch of underdogs that fought their asses off. And now I have to tell them they're not in the NIT. It's just an absolute joke."

This comes after an impressive season for the Jaguars.

They went 21-11 overall and 13-5 in Sun Belt play, which earned them a four-way tie for the conference championship alongside Troy, James Madison and Arkansas State. They also lost by just 10 points to Ole Miss and nine points to TCU in nonconference play.

However, they lost to Arkansas State in the semifinals of the Sun Belt tournament despite being the No. 1 seed in the league.

Troy then defeated Arkansas State in the final and earned the conference's bid to the NCAA tournament.

As for UC Riverside, it went 21-12 overall and 14-6 in Big West play, which was good enough for third in the conference. It lost to Cal Poly in the quarterfinal of the Big West tournament.

Yet the Highlanders are headed to the NIT and will face Santa Clara on Tuesday.