The University of New Mexico women's basketball team -- thanks to an amazing run through the Mountain West Conference tournament -- will play in the opening round of the NCAA Women's Tournament to be held at The Pit (talk about the breaks going your way!).

And the UNM men's team will be headed for an opening-round National Invitation Tournament (NIT) game at the University of California (one of the few PAC 10 teams not to make the NCAAs) on Wednesday, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

But the New Mexico State University Aggie men's team -- despite a narrow loss to Boise State in triple overtime during the Western Athletic Conference championship game in Las Cruces over the weekend -- won't be dancing this post-season, according to this morning's Journal.

There was a slight chance, as the Journal went to bed last night, that the Aggies could play in the College Basketball Invitational (CBI), a new tournament set up in competition with the NIT that was announcing a 16-team field late Sunday.

But the Aggies would rather study than dance in the CBI, NMSU Athletics Director McKinley Boston told the Las Cruces Sun-News late Sunday.

"I notified the CBI that we are not going to accept the opportunity to play," Boston told the Sun-News.

Rather than that Groucho Marx thing of refusing to join a club that would stoop to having you as a member, it appears, according to the Sun-News, that economics were the deciding factor in NMSU's decision to say no.

The new tournament was asking for $50,000 to host a CBI game, requiring ticket sales of between 6,000 and 7,000, but Boston said attendance at the Pan Am Center, which averaged 6,380 fans a game this year, was inconsistent at best, the Sun-News said.

When asked about going on the road, Boston told the Sun-News, "It was a road game versus getting back in the classroom. For a NCAA or NIT road game, I could justify it, but not for a first-year tournament."

Meanwhile, the University of Texas-El Paso Miners weren't too proud to say yes, accepting a CBI bid and taking their fourth trip into the post-season in five years, the El Paso Times reported.

The Miners, who finished the Conference USA tournament with a semifinal loss to Tulsa and closed the season at 19-13, will play an opening round game at home on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Quarterfinal games in the CBI Tournament will be played March 24 and semifinals on March 26, all at campus sites, the Times reported.

The championship will be a best-of-three series on March 31, April 2 and if necessary April 4, with the highest remaining seed hosting the first game and, if necessary, the third game, according to the Times.

UTEP will host Utah of the Mountain West Conference, the team that knocked the Lobos out of the MWC championship and ended its NCAA hopes, according to this roundup from SI.com.

Other teams in the new CBI tournament include Washington, Virginia, Richmond, Old Dominion, Rider, Valparaiso, Nevada, Houston, Tulsa, Miami of Ohio, Bradley, Cincinnati, Ohio and Brown, SI.com reported. 

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