I don't know the official reason from the horse's mouth, but a couple of
considerations that were at least involved in the decision:
 
1.  The consolation game (when the decision to eliminate the consolation
game was made) had no bearing on the NCAA selection.
 
2.  Perhaps more importantly, the consolation game had turned out at times
to just be a chance to vent a lot of frustrations and things got pretty
rough.
 
to clarify #1 -- the NCAA selections were announced before the games were
completed, the tournament champ getting in, but any other selections were
independent of the consolation winner.  The brawls were deemed
counterproductive to the game - this is as I remember it - Keith was a lot
closer to the situation - he may have a better explanation.