Sports fans, college students and gamblers all crave the NCAA Tournament from mid-April, after the last buzzer, until the conference tournaments start up again.

But we forget until Selection Sunday how money and television ratings reign over the "holy grail" of American Sports (sorry, Super Bowl, but the NCAA Tournament takes 3 weeks, not one day).

Usually, I would take this opportunity to whine and complain about how Butler got hosed with a seven seed in the tournament when they are the number 10 team in the nation.

But that's not as important as the disrespect IUPUI received.

I'm sure there are extenuating circumstances, and if there are I'd like to hear them, but why aren't the Jaguars in a post-season tournament?

Here are a few reasons I've come up with (including a few inspired by sports-talk radio):

1. Six teams from Indiana in the post-season? That's the television-ratings-equivalent of airing C-SPAN on six different channels with a different Senator speaking on each channel.

There aren't as many people in the targeted demographic as say, Comedy Central or California schools, and that viewer-ship will be divided into six different groups, based on representatives or alma maters.

Those ratings are negligible and not worth investors' time or money.

Unless it's British Parliament, but there are no comparisons to British Parliament.

2. IUPUI did not win their conference tournament. I know how obvious this sounds, but post-season selection committees have a very short memory (see also: Kentucky v. Gardner-Webb, November, and NCAA Tournament 11 seed, March). The Summit League is respectable, and teams from the conference strike fear into the hearts of the major conference teams every year. But no matter how many top-50, top-100 or Australian Olympic Teams you beat, if there is no Summit League Tournament Championship on the resume, consider the season over.

3. Oral Roberts University had a money-laundering scandal this year -- Ron Hunter just coached with his shoes off. Which is the more interesting story for 30-second TV clips? Definitely not the heartwarming, positive one. You can't document the impact the Samaritan's Feet shoes are making in Africa in 30 seconds. But everyone understands dollar signs.

4. The Jungle, where IUPUI plays, seats 1,215 people, making it slightly smaller capacity than a 1969 Volkswagen van. Imagine trying to sell that to a sporting tournament, or fitting Digger Phelps ego in there.

I'm not talking about the NCAA here, necessarily. IUPUI would need to win the Summit League tournament or sacrifice Bob Knight on an altar before Miles Brand in order to get into the Field of 65.

But not giving a 26-win team a bid to the NIT or the brand new College Basketball Invitational is rather ridiculous, no matter what league the team plays in.

Especially when the Jaguars have such a dynamic player, Summit League Player of the Year George Hill, not to mention one of the most memorable school names.

University of Maryland Baltimore County and Cal State University Fullerton, you've got nothing on the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. Four vowels, one consonant, no filler.

I'm very disappointed the world won't get to see Hill play another game this season, and more people won't be introduced to Hunter's good will and great coaching.

But mostly, I'm disappointed for those student athletes who spend all year working as hard as possible, doing exactly what they're supposed to do, winning an inordinate amount of games and still get told they're not good enough.

That takes all the fun out of the post season for me.