BREAKING: NIT BLING IS SECOND RATE

Courtesy of University of South Carolina

Every time you come around the city... bling bling.

The NIT! Sure, to most, it's b-list. But it's also an opportunity to add five more wins to what was likely an 18-13 regular season. Then there's the free trip to New York City. (You'd rather go to Raleigh? C'mon!). And, if you're like UMass forward Gary Forbes, who's playing in the Finals tonight, there's always the lure of the bling.

"I don't really care what people say [about the NIT]," Forbes said Wednesday. "I'll hopefully have a ring on Thursday."

Or a watch.

Turns out the NIT isn't all about the ring. For years, the tournament's top prize (aside from the trophy*) has been a shiny new wristwatch. South Carolina basketball SID Michelle Schmitt has two of them, after the Gamecocks won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006. Let's just say she's not keeping them in a safety deposit box.

"The first one was kinda' crappy," said Schmitt. "It's the wrist band. It's like, an old Timex. It's silver, but it stretches, and it's always squeezing and pulling on your hair."

Tangled wrist hair notwithstanding, Gary Forbes still has a reason to carry on. Quality seems to be on the upswing.

"We won it the next year," says Schmitt. "And the watch was awesome. It was a silver Fossil, and I wore it the other day and someone said, 'That's a great watch.'"

Renaldo Balkman of the New York Knicks was a star on those Gamecock teams. The former first-round pick claims to still have his watches! Buuut, he doesn't wear them, and, at the moment, isn't really sure where they are. He's not the only one.

"I think it's in a box somewhere in my house," says Tom Wywrot, the Michigan assistant AD who snagged the bauble in 2003. "It's silver. It's got numbers and hands and says N-I-T."

In other words, it's a watch. But it's not all Wywrot has to remind him of the Wolverines' moment of "triumph".

"We got rings too," Wywrot says. "They just technically don't give them to you. The school makes them for the kids."

So if the winning team wants rings?

"The school has to pay for it."

A current eBay search for "NIT Championship watch," "NIT championship ring," and some dozen other similar attempts on the theme turns up nothing.

Of course, a similar search for Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" also comes up short, and he painted nine variations that we know of. So we're reminded that one definition of "priceless" is "of inestimable wealth." Some things meet that description. Some also meet the second definition: "highly amusing, absurd, or odd."

Even a high quality Fossil.

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ELSEWHERE IN THE SPORTS WORLD TONIGHT:

Pittsburgh Pirates at Atlanta Braves, 7:10pm ET
Here! Comes! Bream!

Tampa Bay Rays at Baltimore Orioles, 7:05pm ET
This game couldn't possibly be more depressing in the grander scheme of things.

Houston Rockets at Portland Trailblazers, 10:30pm ET
If Greg Oden was healthy, would you think he's older or younger than Dikembe?

Tampa Bay Lightning at Washington Capitals, 7pm ET
Caps are one point off the last playoff spot. Ovechkin is one more hat trick away from getting deity status in DC.

Buffalo Sabres at Montreal Canadiens, 7:30pm ET
Sabres need a lot of help to make the playoffs. Seriously, can someone upstairs cut that city a break?

*There is no official name for the trophy, but in 2005, South Carolina took home a traditional cup, "But it was weird, because it had a lid on it," says South Carolina basketball SID Michelle Schmitt. "We're like, what's with the lid?"

The next year, South Carolina raised a whole new trophy in the air at mid-court.

"It was so cool, a totally different trophy," said Schmitt. "Then they told us that we couldn't take it home."

That trophy would stay and South Carolina's name would be inscribed on the prize, similar to the Stanley Cup.

"We asked 'Where is our trophy?' And they told us that during the day, it had fallen off the back of a van and broke."

So, apparently, along with watches, the NIT has multiple trophies.

"We finally got it sometime in June, I think," said Schmitt. "This one didn't have a lid on it."

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