C.M. Newton, the selection committee chairman for the NIT, said today that UW was left out of the tournament for the most straightforward of reasons: There were 24 better at-large teams.

He implied that UW would have made their field if not for the eight automatic berths, but that with only 24 slots to fill — rather than 32 — the Huskies were among the last eliminated, and were probably hurt most by their 1-10 road record.

I also asked Newton about a couple of conspiracy theories that have been floated by some disappointed fans, and he

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Among the many disappointments coach Lorenzo Romar felt about his team being left out of the NIT field, one particular one was disappointment at the abrupt end for his two seniors.

“When we played that last game at Washington State, we didn’t hug and shed tears as if this is our last game together. Hans Gasser and Brandon Burmeister are seniors. That was their last game, and we had no way of knowing that.”

Of course, it may also have been the last college game for freshman Spencer Hawes, if he chooses to go to the NBA. When

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Coch Lorenzo Romar was with his team watching the NIT field being announced live on ESPN2 when the four brackets were announced and the Huskies’ name hadn’t been called.

“I checked to make sure that was the fourth and final bracket,” Romar said. “There was no way you could have told me we were not going to be in it.”

Romar said he still has no idea why, but would try to find out more.

The news went down no easier with the players.

“To suggest that we’re not as good as some of the teams

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Washington was not extended an invitation by either the NCAA today — as expected — or by the NIT — a big surprise.

That means the UW basketball season is over.

Here is a link to the official NIT site.

I’ll be back with Lorenzo Romar’s reaction soon. As of now (6:35), he is still in the locker room meeting with his team.

I had been assuming that if the Huskies fell to the National Invitation Tournament this season that they would be among the best teams in the field and favorites to open with a home game or two or three and progress to Madison Square Garden.

However, I may have underestimated the NIT field. All those free minor-conference bids into the NCAA and some major programs — perhaps including Stanford — slipping off of the NCAA bubble seem to be pushing the Huskies to the second half of even the NIT field. Which could mean a dangerous road game as

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The Huskies basketball team arrived back in Seattle today after their elimination from the Pacific-10 tournament last night.

However, the coaching staff remained in Southern California to do some recruiting.

The News Tribune has created a new blog devoted to March Madness.

I’ll keep posting directly-UW-related stuff here. But the rest of the Pac-10 tournament stuff and the continuing coverage of WSU and Gonzaga in the NCAA’s will be posted on our Tourney Time blog. I’ll probably also double-post UW’s NIT information there, too.

An agreement has been reached to keep the Pac-10 tournament in Staples Center through at least 2012.

The tournament has been based in L.A. since it was reinstituted in 2002.

Some league coaches had advocated rotating the tournament among other sites in the interest of competitive fairness, and bids were taken from other interested cities including Seattle. However, Fox Sports Net, which owns the rights to the tournament, decided to extend its agreement with Staples Center.

"Staples is a world-class arena, located in a primary media market within the conference’s footprint," Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen said.

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