There's no financial incentive for the players to continue playing. In the NBA, players make their salary during the regular season (that's negotiated through contracts as we're all aware) but the NBA has a playoff pool that compensates players for post-season games. There's no additional compensation pool for college athletes for the post-season. You get what's promised to you in your Rev Share agreement and whatever NIL contracts you sign. If you want players to play in a post-season format (whether that's the NCAA tournament or even the NIT) it should be built into the contract that they're either a.) required to play to continue receiving their payouts or b.) have an added bonus of the money they would be paid if they play in either tournament. I think so much of the dialogue on this is pointed at the wrong place. In a labor market, if you're offer is $0 for additional labor responsibilities, you should not expect labor to take you seriously or engage in anything you want to do. After all, as a country, we fought a war over this very thing. So, to me, this is a solvable issue that once again could be solved if college athletics had effective collective bargaining that allowed players to be compensated for post-season performances on top of what they receive for the regular season like every other professional model. No athlete in this day and age is going to play for free for the love of program. That era is dead and gone. The Hokies should be playing in the NIT but asking the players to do it for free, that doesn't fly with me. If they could increase their compensation by playing in the tournament, they probably would.