The best seniors (l-r) Gweth, Boxley and Olson can likely hope for is a berth in the fledgling CIT.When SW’s cover story about Seattle University’s return to Division 1 men’s basketball ran, the Redhawks’ record stood at 11-13. Shortly after publication, SU’s radio play-by-play announcer, Dave Grosby, proclaimed that, in his wildest dreams, SU would win out, finish 18-13, and host an NIT game at the Key.Well, they’ve damn near won out, winning five of six to enter Saturday’s game at Utah Valley with a record of 16-14. Only one other team, North Dakota State, has posted a winning record in the first season after a jump to Division 1, says SU athletic director Bill Hogan. But they did it against a schedule that included a few non-Division 1 teams, whereas SU has played an all-D1 schedule.Hence, it’s no stretch to say the Redhawks have had an historically successful season. But it turns out they won’t be playing in the NIT, and the reason has nothing to do with the team’s on-court performance. (See “Update” at post’s end, as the ground has shifted in the five days since this post went up.)In the course of looking into whether Seattle U stood a chance to be the first novice (or comeback case, anyway) D1 school to play in a postseason tournament, an NIT official informed SW intern-in-chief Parisa Sadrzadeh that SU wasn’t yet eligible for the NIT owing to that long-independent tournament’s recently-minted affiliation with the NCAA tournament, in which SU won’t be able to play until 2013 due to a predetermined probationary period. This is news to just about everyone who’s followed SU hoop this year–including, to a degree, the school’s athletic department.Despite the fact that the NIT is now owned by the NCAA, it’s still an independent LLC, and isn’t listed as an official championship in the NCAA manual, says assistant athletic director Eric Guerra. “At this point there is some confusion over whether the NIT will select Seattle U based on its eligibility,” explains Guerra. “But as defined in the manual, we are only ineligible for the National Collegiate Championship and the NCAA championship. We plan to clear that up in the future.”In fairness, as Hogan willingly concedes, even if SU had finished 18-13 (win Saturday, and they’ll finish 17-14), the NIT, a once-prestigious 32-team tourney now populated by the nearest-miss NCAA rejects, likely wouldn’t have come calling, as the Redhawks’ RPI (a power rating involving strength of schedule and won-loss record) would have come up well short of the most lackluster invitee’s. (The University of Washington and Washington State University look like NIT locks at this point, assuming neither ends up in the NCAA tourney somehow.)But there are two other postseason tourneys that lurk beneath the NIT: the CBI and CIT, and that’s where Hogan thinks the Redhawks may have a case. First, he says, they must beat Utah Valley, a team they’ve beaten once before. Then he feels that the fact that Seattle U is the country’s “best independent” should compel the second-year CIT, at least, to invite the Redhawks into its 16-team field.How hard a sell can that be, right? Turns out, tougher than you might think; one credible prophecy has the Redhawks on the outside looking in at two schools it lost to during the regular season: Harvard and Wofford. Who knew those losses would come back to bite the Redhawks in the ass? Then again, simply being in position to get bitten in that ass has to be beyond most SU fans’ rosiest preseason prognostications.Update (3/10, 9:30 a.m.): It seems as though the NIT, or at least its head honcho, is warming to SU’s interpretation of the rules. “I talked to the [NIT] Executive Director, and he was always under the impression that we were eligible, but somebody on staff said we were not,” says Hogan. “Basically, our position is, until we’re told differently, we are eligible. I do know that [the NIT is] going to bring this up with the NCAA on Friday or Saturday.”Double Update (3/10, 11:30 a.m.): It didn’t take the NCAA until Friday or Saturday to align themselves with SU, it took them two hours. “We talked to the NCAA this morning, and they agree with our position,” says Hogan.In other updates, Seattle U defeated Utah Valley in that road game Saturday to finish the regular season at 17-14, and Charles Garcia is turning pro a year early.