NIT Bracket Reflections

My NIT bracket ended up being wildly off of what was eventually announced on Selection Sunday on X and Instagram and I think in the end what it comes down to is that I severely underestimated the ability of FOX Sports to convince teams to play in the College Basketball Crown.

The College Basketball Crown hung like a specter over the entire NIT selection process all season. The assumption was that required teams from the three sponsoring conferences would definitely attend, but would anyone else? How would they fill it?

Well it turns out that the College Basketball Crown does have some dubious teams in the field (DePaul is 14-19 and 111th in KenPom for instance), but they also managed to get some of the best non-NCAA Tournament teams in the country (such as Boise St.) to play in their tournament even though they were not required to.

This was also despite some opt outs from some prominent teams, including Indiana, Rutgers and Ohio State.

Here is my evaluation of if the College Basketball Crown did not exist whether that team would be in the NIT.

• Utah (16-16, 75th in KenPom): Most likely
• Butler (14-19, 76th): No
• George Washington (21-12, 119th): Maybe
• Boise St. (24-10, 49th): Definitely
• Nebraska (17-14, 50th): Definitely
• Arizona St. (13-19, 69th): No
• Georgetown (17-15, 88th): Most likely
• Washington St. (19-14, 118th): Maybe
• DePaul (14-19, 111th): No
• Cincinnati (18-15, 56th): Definitely
• Oregon St. (20-12, 82nd): Maybe
• UCF (17-16, 68th): Most likely
• Colorado (14-20, 79th): No
• Villanova (19-14, 57th): Definitely
• Tulane (19-14, 141st): No
• USC (16-17, 61st): Maybe

Boise St., Nebraska, Cincinnati and Villanova all would have likely been high seeds in the NIT. Losing them to the College Basketball Crown was a big blow. 

That said, I'm happy that teams like GW, Washington St. and even Tulane that maybe had worse power ratings but still had solid seasons a postseason opportunity is great.

Those top four teams being in the Crown (because of either obligation or preference) forced the NCAA's NIT Selection Committee to dig deeper and invite teams such as Jacksonville St., UC Riverside, North Alabama, Samford and Kent State to the tournament. Two of those teams actually won their first round games! (Congrats Jacksonville St. and Kent St.!) In fact, Jacksonsville St.'s victory over Georgia Tech (one of the few power conference teams that decided to participate in the NIT) was exactly on point with one of the Crown's original talking points. (Of course they invited mid-majors to fill out the bracket anyways.)

It's also worth noting that this season was basically armageddon for the NIT Selection Committee. The fact that the NCAA Tournament selected 14 SEC teams (and honestly, it looks like a decent decision) meant that only LSU and South Carolina were even available for the NIT (both declined). While the NCAA was able to convince Georgia Tech, Stanford, SMU and Oklahoma St. to play in the tournament there is a distinct lack of "household" names in the tournament. (Six Atlantic 10 teams is great for me, but not many casual fans.)

[As an aside, it's interesting that Oklahoma St., which plays in the College Basketball Crown sponsoring Big 12 and went 16-17 with a 97th overall KenPom was left out given some of the other teams invited. I guess they didn't want a sixth Big 12 team?]

Despite it all, when the last four NIT teams reach Hinkle Fieldhouse on April 1, it should still make for a lot of entertaining basketball.

NIT Bracket Announced

The NIT bracket has officially been released. I’ll have a lot more thoughts about what this all means once we see what the College Basketball Crown bracket looks like. Right now though if you’re a FOX executive you have to be pretty happy.

NIT Bracketology, March 16 - Final Projection

This is my final NIT bracket projection. The bracket will be announced on X and Instagram at 9:30 pm ET. I have no idea if we'll have additional opt outs or if some of these teams will decide to play in the College Basketball Crown, but here we go:

1. Boise St.

Northern Colorado

4. Santa Clara

Utah Valley

3. North Texas

Saint Joseph's

2. UC Irvine

Washington St.

1. SMU

North Alabama

4. Georgetown

St. Bonaventure

3. TCU

Arkansas St.

2. George Mason

Furman

1. Nebraska

Saint Louis

4. Dayton

Northern Iowa

3. Georgia Tech

UAB

2. Bradley

UNLV

1. San Francisco

CSUN

4. Middle Tennessee

Chattanooga

3. USC

Nevada

2. Stanford

Oregon St.

NIT Bracketology, March 15

Note: Please see the Current NIT Bracket page for the latest bracket as things develop today, such as Rutgers opting out.

There are so many scenarios remaining because of a few conference tournaments that have a chance to make a big impact on the bracket namely: The Mountain West Championship, The American Athletic Conference (if Memphis loses at any point), The Atlantic 10 (if VCU loses at any point), and The Big West Championship (lot on the line there).

Right now I have Colorado St. projected as the Mountain West champion, which takes another spot in the bracket. It pushed Xavier out of the NCAA Tournament bracket and into the College Basketball Crown, which pushed Butler into the Big East's automatic NIT bid and Georgetown to an at-large. 

Also, I'm not sure Iowa, which doesn't even have a coach at the moment would even play in the NIT. Plus the postseason opt outs of teams like Northwestern make it all a confusing proposition.

Pittsburgh and Florida St. are not in this bracket because I'm assuming or have seen reporting that they are not planning to play in the postseason.

Another team I could see definitely opting out is Rutgers with those potentially high NBA Draft picks.

Project NIT Bracket:

1. North Carolina

Saint Joseph's

4. LSU

Rutgers

3. TCU

UNLV

2. Wake Forest

Chattanooga

1. Boise St.

Northern Colorado

4. USC

Santa Clara

3. North Texas

Grand Canyon

2. UC Irvine

Nevada

1. SMU

Stanford

4. Butler

Loyola IL

3. Bradley

Penn St.

2. George Mason

Georgetown

1. San Francisco

CSUN

4. Middle Tennessee

Arkansas St.

3. Dayton

Oregon St.

2. Iowa

Northern Iowa

I'll have another update tomorrow with my final NIT bracket.

NIT Bracketology, March 13

We're getting down to the wire. There is not going to be an NIT Selection Show this season, which is sad. The bracket is expected to come out on Sunday night though. (The College Basketball Crown bracket is not expected until Monday.)

The Barking Crow did a great job of covering some things that we know about The College Basketball Crown and the selection for that tournament. Which hey, isn't much!

This NIT bracket assumes that the KPI/NET average to select the top teams for the College Basketball Crown is correct. It also assumes that those top teams will be unable to participate in the NIT. Also, Utah has explicitly made some statements about the CBC, so I'm assuming they're planning on playing there and not in the NIT.

I don't know what to do with LSU. The Tigers are 14-18, but look in line to receive an exempt bid to the NIT. Would they accept it? Honestly, I don't think LSU is that bad of a basketball team. They're just stuck in a historically good SEC, which is why they'd be getting an exempt bid in the first place.

One team I would expect to decline an NIT invite is Florida State.

Project NIT Bracket:

1. Texas

Northern Colorado (automatic bid)

4. Georgetown

George Mason

3. TCU

Grand Canyon

2. Iowa

Saint Joseph's

1. Boise St.

Santa Clara

4. Middle Tennessee

Chattanooga (automatic bid)

3. San Francisco

USC

2. UC Irvine

Nevada

1. SMU

Oregon St.

4. LSU

Arkansas St.

3. North Texas

UNLV

2. Wake Forest

Rutgers

1. Colorado St.

Stanford

4. Bradley

St. Bonaventure

3. Dayton

Troy

2. Pittsburgh

Penn St.

The one team seriously considered that is not in this bracket is Loyola IL. I ran out of spots and the bracketing got hard with so many Atlantic 10 teams below the seeded portion of the bracket. There is a chance the Ramblers still sneak in. Also, many of these teams are still playing. So we'll see how it all shakes out.

NIT Bracketology, March 10

There's less than a week until Selection Sunday and the NIT bracket is heating up! Things are also getting sort of wild. Leagues like the SEC and Big East are looking at sending so many teams to the NCAA Tournament that there are not many teams left to play in other postseason events. This actually has the result of freeing up some space in the NIT, which is nice if you're trying to construct a reasonable bracket.

The biggest assumption I made for the bracket is that South Carolina would decline a bid to the NIT. All but three teams in the SEC appear to be headed to the NCAA Tournament (I guess it really is the strongest conference ever). That leaves Texas, LSU and South Carolina on the outside looking in for a conference that gets three exempt bids to the NIT. Would South Carolina really want one of them at 12-19 overall? (I think it's a stretch for LSU to get one at 14-17.) I have the Gamecocks declining, which opens up an at-large spot for a non-exempt team to host (in this case Colorado St.).

Though they're now harder to earn, we already also have one presumed automatic bid for the NIT: Chattanooga. I would expect that a few more teams find their way into the bracket that way as well. Unfortunately, South Alabama's resume isn't quite good enough for them to get an automatic invite (their metrics average looks to be ~136). I could see them getting an invite as a nice gesture from the committee though if a number of teams declined.

Last 6 NCAA Teams (In Order): West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, San Diego St., Indiana, North Carolina

NIT Bracket:

1. Colorada St.

Santa Clara

4. Georgetown (Big East)

Rutgers

3. LSU (SEC 2)

Chattanooga

2. Wake Forest (ACC 2)

Saint Joseph's

1. Texas (SEC 1)

St. Bonaventure

4. Bradley (MVC)

Iowa

3. North Texas (American)

Florida St.

2. Nebraska (Big Ten)

TCU

1. Boise St. (Mountain West)

Grand Canyon

4. Middle Tennessee (CUSA)

UCF

3. San Francisco (WCC)

Stanford

2. UC Irvine (Big West)

UNLV

1. SMU (ACC 1)

UNC Wilmington

4. Dayton (A10)

Penn St.

3. Kansas St.

Oregon St.

2. Pittsburgh

George Mason

College Basketball Crown:

Ohio St.

Northwestern

Cincinnati

Utah

Villanova

Butler

Also considered: Loyola IL, Georgia Tech, Saint Louis, Troy, CSUN, Northern Iowa, UAB, Stamford, George Washington, Florida Atlantic, North Alabama, South Alabama, Nevada

NIT Bracketology, March 1

You would've been forgiven if you were thinking, "Is John ever going to update his NIT bracketology this season?"

Life has been extremely busy generally, and it has left me with less time to watch college basketball that I would've liked. This has meant that while I've watched the occasional moments of Princeton and Northwestern's disappointing seasons, there hasn't been nearly as much time to watch other teams.

There also has not been a lot of time to do research on what the impact of the College Basketball Crown will be on the NIT. Thus I'm forced to make some educated guesses in creating this bracket.

Those guesses include:

1. The top teams from the CBC affiliated leagues (Big Ten, Big 12, and Big East) will play in that tournament. The reason I think this is the case is because FOX bracketologists have started indicating potential College Basketball Crown teams and it looks like it's always the top two teams that miss from any league.
2. I assume any at-large team and any team from any other conference will prefer to play in the NIT. This is pretty straightforward and based most on educated conjecture from talking to sources prior to the start of the season.
3. The NIT will call every team in a league to take the automatic bids. That is why you see teams like Georgetown, Penn St. and Utah in this bracket as automatic bids. It's not that I think those are the best non-NCAA Tournament teams. It's that those are the teams I think might accept an NIT invitation.

If you know more about this situation feel free to reach out to me via email at nycbuckets[at]gmail[dot]com or on Blue Sky. It would be great to have some additional context.

With all of that said, here is how I think the bracket will shape up in two weeks based on where things currently stand. All of the data used here was through Feb. 28, 2025.

Last NCAA Tournament Teams (In Order):

West Virginia

Vanderbilt

Georgia

North Carolina

Nebraska

Arkansas

Wake Forest

Ohio St.

In The College Basketball Crown:

Northwestern (B1G)

Indiana (B1G)

Cincinnati (B12)

Arizona St. (B12)

Villanova (BE)

Xavier (BE)

Iowa (B1G)

TCU (Big 12)

UCF (Big 12)

Rutgers (B1G)

UNLV (MWC) -- Just a vibes guess.

Project NIT Bracket (Autos for Top 16, Bubbles in Italics):

1. Texas (SEC)

Arkansas St.

4. Middle Tennessee (CUSA)

Colorado St.

3. North Texas (American)

Kansas St.

2. Pittsburgh (ACC)

Dayton

1. Boise St. (MWC)

Oregon St.

4. Penn St.

St. Bonaventure

3. Bradley (MVC)

Saint Joseph's

2. UC Irvine (BW)

San Francisco

1. Santa Clara (WCC)

Grand Canyon

4. Stanford (ACC)

Nevada

3. LSU (SEC)

Florida St.

2. Utah (B12)

USC

1. SMU (ACC)

Samford

4. Georgeotnw (BE)

Virginia

3. George Mason (A10)

UNC Wilmington

2. Oklahoma (SEC)

Northern Iowa

I feel really iffy on Florida St. being in this bracket. The Seminoles declined to play last season (I have the emails showing the discussion) and I'm not sure what's different about this season. Both them and Virginia seem like the least safe bets amongst the non-College Basketball Crown power conference teams.

I'll be trying to post some more regular bracket updates this month, because it is March!