This is going to be a very different NIT. The National Invitational Tournament has routinely been the place where mid-majors and lesser-known teams had their chance to compete against the best programs in the country who barely missed out on the big dance of the NCAA Tournament, but not anymore.
In the quest to increase the profile of the NIT, organizers removed the longstanding method of entry: Winning a conference regular season title. Now the focus (like all college sports) is on getting as many power conference attendees as possible, with automatic bids now going to the major conference schools who didn’t make the tournament — regardless of what that does to the competition.
So, this means instead of seeing some extremely talented teams who barely missed out, they’ll now be passed over in favor of the fourth or fifth best team from a bigger conference. This has also led to teams already announcing that they have no interest in playing in the NIT, like Ole Miss who already rejected a big, similar to North Carolina in 2023.
A year ago North Texas cut down the nets in a win over UAB, so let’s take a look at the field this year.
Top Left Bracket
1 Seton Hall
Saint Joseph’s
4 LSU
North Texas
3 Providence
Boston College
2 Princeton
UNLV
Bottom Left Bracket
1 Wake Forest
Appalachian State
4 Georgia
Xavier
3 Virginia Tech
Richmond
2 Ohio State
Cornell
Top Right Bracket
1 Indiana State
SMU
4 Butler
Minnesota
3 Bradley
Loyola Chicago
2 Cincinnati
San Francisco
Bottom Right Bracket
1 Villanova
VCU
4 UCF
South Florida
3 Iowa
Kansas State
2 Utah
UC Irvine
