Feb. 26 NIT Bracketology

Before you look at this bracket you should know: I have no idea what is going to happen this season. Thanks to the general guidelines the NIT selection committee seems to follow (under 100 in NET, above .500 overall) there's usually not that many at-large candidates for the NIT. Until this season.

The constant parity in the middle tier of college basketball has created a logjam of power conference teams sitting right around .500. In the past five seasons the NIT has been played (so not counting the COVID cancellation) there have been four teams total selected that were within one game of .500. Depending on how the end of the regular season and the conference tournaments play out we could easily be looking at four teams from this season alone.

This makes it nearly impossible to figure out how to select what will eventually be those final at-large slots (once automatic bids start happening). While it's possible a few will fall off, teams like Colorado, Washington St., Nebraska, Villanova, Oklahoma, Florida, and more will be vying for those last bids. What does the committee do with all of them? Will they favor the ones with better resumes or those with stronger power ratings? I truly don't know. It makes this bracket a real guessing game.

With that said, welcome Nebraska to the projected NIT bracket. KenPom has the Cornhuskers projected to finish 16-15 in the regular season. That of course requires Nebraska to win either at home versus Michigan St. or at Iowa during the final week of the regular season. If Fred Hoiberg's team does that they'll be one of the most fascinating cases in the bracket. Nebraska's NET is 88 and its KenPom is 93 at the moment, but the team sheet resume metrics (KPI, SOR) have a 64.5 average because the Cornhuskers haven't lost to a team outside the top two quadrants. (Heck, they've only played eight of those games total.) Personally, I'd want that team in the NIT. We'll see how things play out and if the committee agrees on Selection Sunday.

Florida is now projected to finish under .500 in the regular season according to KenPom (15-16). Thus I've removed them from the bracket. The Gators play at Georgia and home versus LSU and need to win both to get back above water.

Also, I had to play around with the seeding for the road teams quite a bit to get decent-ish matchups, so pay attention to the italics. Washington St. and Santa Clara are actually higher in my seed line than Southern Miss.

Update (Feb. 28, 7:30 am): I dropped Oklahoma St. into the NIT after their home loss to Baylor on Monday night. Wisconsin takes their place as one of the final teams into the NCAA Tournament.

NCAA Tournament Bubble: USC, Nevada, Utah St., Auburn, Memphis, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Mississippi St. (yes, I know I'm well off consensus by including USU, but they're good)

NIT Bracket (bubble in italics, U. is unseeded):

1. North Carolina
U. UCF
4. Vanderbilt
U. Southern Miss
3. Wake Forest
U. Washington St.
2. College of Charleston
U. UAB

1. Arizona St.
U. UNLV
4. Drake
U. Nebraska
3. Oregon
U. Santa Clara
2. New Mexico
U. Dayton

1. Oklahoma St.
U. Cincinnati
4. Seton Hall
U. Utah
3. Penn St.
U. Villanova
2. Clemson
U. Tulane

1. Michigan
U. Saint Louis
4. Virginia Tech
U. Colorado
3. Texas Tech
U. Sam Houston St.
2. North Texas
U. Loyola Marymount

Lurking: Florida, St. John's, Oklahoma, Toledo, BYU

Next Bracket? Probably once the first automatic bid is handed out. I'll also update the Current NIT Bracket more frequently with those sorts of changes.

Feb. 24 NIT Bracketology

There's been enough movement to justify a new bracket going into the weekend, so here it is! There are a few teams lurking right below .500 that could make interesting additions to this bracket in particular Washington St., Nebraska, and Villanova.

Note: This bracket takes into account the ability to move around unseeded teams. So the italics denoting bubble teams that could potentially lose their spot to an automatic bid team is definitely important to pay attention to.

After this bracket was published Southern Miss won the Sun Belt, so I replaced them with Marshall in the bracket. The two teams are a close to 1-to-1 replacements of each other.

NCAA Bubble Teams: USC, Nevada, Utah St., Wisconsin, Auburn, Memphis, West Virginia

NIT Bracket:

1. Michigan
U. Cincinnati
4. Vanderbilt
U. Bradley
3. Seton Hall
U. Colorado
2. Virginia Tech
U. UAB

1. New Mexico
U. Toledo
4. Sam Houston St.
U. Utah
3. Clemson
U. Marshall
2. Oregon
U. Loyola Marymount

1. Mississippi St.
U. St. John's
4. Wake Forest
U. Tulane
3. College of Charleston
U. Dayton
2. North Carolina
U. UCF

1. Texas Tech
U. Saint Louis
4. North Texas
U. Florida
3. Arizona St.
U. Santa Clara
2. Penn St.
U. UNLV

Lurking: Duquesne, Villanova, Washington St., Nebraska

Feb. 19 NIT Bracketology

The end of the season is coming upon us really fast! Teams though are still rapidly rising and falling through the postseason picture. This latest bracket is a reflection of that fact. We welcome Texas Tech back to the bracket. Florida is falling and its best player is out for the season. Clemson is crashing (and lost to one of the worst high-major teams in the country). 

There are teams though coming to take the spots. One interesting one to watch is Nebraska. The Cornhuskers are now 14-14 and 7-10 in the Big Ten after a 3-game winning streak. If Fred Hoiberg's squad can find a way to take down Minnesota and Michigan St. in their next two games they'd find a spot in this bracket. 

Another hot team is Tulane. The Green Wave are 17-7 and have swept Memphis and won five straight games (including three in overtime). Now they've got a soft schedule, including a home-and-home against East Carolina down the stretch. There's not a ton of upside, but Tulane looks likely to secure an NIT spot.

It seems unlikely to me that all four Mountain West Conference at-large candidates will make the NCAA Tournament, but that's how I have it breaking right now. The least impressive resume probably belongs to Utah St. The Aggies are projected by Bart Torvik to have just one Quad I win, but they are projected to be 8-1 against Quad II. I think it'll be close (obviously) and that could give the NIT a nice West Coast flavor in the higher seed lines.

Note: I flipped Santa Clara and UAB in this bracket for geographic reasons. (They're close anyways.)

Last 8 NCAA: USC, Boise St., Nevada, New Mexico, Utah St., Auburn, Memphis, West Virginia

NIT Bracket (bubble in italics):

1. Mississippi St.

U. Cincinnati

4. Wake Forest

U. UCF

3. Michigan

U. Bradley

2. Oregon

U. Santa Clara

1. Wisconsin

U. Toledo

4. Colorado

U. Florida

3. Clemson

U. Vanderbilt

2. Seton Hall

U. Dayton

1. North Carolina

U. Furman

4. Arizona St.

U. Sam Houston St.

3. Texas Tech

U. Saint Louis

2. Penn St.

U. UNLV

1. North Texas

U. Marshall

4. Utah

U. Tulane

3. College of Charleston

U. UAB

2. Virginia Tech

U. Loyola Marymount

Considered: St. John's, BYU, James Madison, Louisiana Lafayette, UC Santa Barbara, Indiana St., Montana St., Akron, Syracuse

Not Projected To Be .500: Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio St., Villanova, Butler, Washington St.

Feb. 12 NIT Bracketology

The Northwestern Wildcats are nowhere near this NIT bracket, which is absolutely amazing! There are a LOT of teams though hanging around the NIT bracket, which is making this pretty difficult to figure out. This is my best attempt for what the bracket will look at the end of the season. As we've seen this week though, things can change fast. I'll be updating the projections as necessary moving forward until Selection Sunday.

Also, I've started playing with the seeds for geography. The biggest change is that UCF and Hofstra were each moved up a seed line and Loyola Marymount down two for geographic reasons. Of course we will never know if that's a case when the NIT bracket is released because the NCAA has started using the "U", or "Unseeded" designation to get around that issue.

Last 6 NCAA Teams: Texas A&M, Memphis, New Mexico, North Carolina, Kentucky Oregon

NIT Bracket:

1. Utah St.

U. Bradley

4. UAB

U. UCF

3. Clemson

U. Hofstra

2. USC

U. Loyola Marymount

1. Seton Hall

U. Louisiana Lafayette

4. Michigan

U. Cincinnati

3. Wake Forest

U. VCU

2. Wisconsin

U. St. John's

1. Virginia Tech

U. Marshall

4. Colorado

U. Sam Houston St.

3. Penn St.

U. Saint Louis

2. North Texas

U. Syracuse

1. Arizona St.

U. Santa Clara

4. Vanderbilt

U. UNLV

3. Florida

U. Tulane

2. Utah

U. BYU

Also considered: James Madison, Montana St., Indiana St., UC Irvine, Duquesne, Fordham, Toledo, Temple, Georgia, Washington, San Jose St.

Not .500: Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Nebraska, Ohio St., Villanova, Butler

Feb. 1 NIT Bracketology

The season is starting to wind down! As we enter the penultimate month of the regular season there are still a bunch of conference games to be played, but resumes are starting to solidify. Some trends are also starting to emerge. One is that the Atlantic 10 might be slight shell-shocked on Selection Sunday. The league, which is one of the best in the country (currently ranking 11th in KenPom), is pretty much guaranteed to send only its conference tournament champion to the NCAA Tournament. Assuming that champion is the same as the regular season champion, it could be hard for the A-10 to even get an at-large bid to the NIT. In the current scenario I have VCU as the A-10 champion and both Dayton and Saint Louis appear as bubble teams deep into the NIT bracket. The problem for the league is the quadrant system. Because so many teams are bunched up in the 129-176 range in the NET they're just beating each other up and creating bad losses. Dayton, VCU and Saint Louis are a little above that fray at 68, 81 and 85 respectively, but even that is questionable territory for a non-power conference NIT at-large.

And there are plenty of power conference teams to take those at-larges. The relative "flatness" of college basketball this season has created a lot of mediocre squads (a few that could make it aren't even in this bracket because the projections currently have them under .500). It'll be interesting to see how the final month or so of the regular season shakes out and what teams emerge. There could be a number of surprises!

One particular surprise in this bracket is Temple. The Owls are currently 116th in NET and have a losses to Wagner, Penn, Mississippi and Maryland Eastern Shore on their resume. So why are they in this bracket? They've won eight of their past 10 games, including at Houston and at UCF. Temple also finishes with a relatively soft slate in the American Athletic Conference. Their hardest remaining games all have the upside of potential QI or QII wins (Houston, @Memphis, @Cincinnati, @Tulane). If the Owls close strong they'll have a decent chance of making the NIT.

Last season the NCAA went with unseeded teams after the top four lines. I'm continuing that bracketing procedure with my predictions this season. It's also worth noting that The Barking Crow, which also does NIT bracketology, expects there to be a large number of automatic bids to the NIT. This could squeeze some of the bubble teams towards the bottom of the bracket. (I typically assume about 10 teams will fall off because of automatic bids, but it could be higher this season.)

Last 8 NCAA Teams: Auburn, New Mexico, NC State, Texas A&M, Penn St., USC, Oklahoma St., Memphis (the bubble is huge, I could've listed my last 16 teams if I wanted)

NIT Bracket (bubble in italics):

1. Wisconsin

U. Southern Illinois

4. Cincinnati

U. Saint Louis

3. Florida

U. Colorado

2. Seton Hall

U. North Texas

1. Pittsburgh

U. Dayton

4. St. John's

U. UCF

3. Mississippi St.

U. San Jose St.

2. Oklahoma

U. Georgia

1. Nevada

U. Syracuse

4. Oregon

U. Loyola Marymount

3. Utah

U. Temple

2. Utah St.

U. Utah Valley

1. Virginia Tech

U. UAB

4. Arizona St.

5. UNLV

3. Wake Forest

U. Washington

2. Kentucky

U. Santa Clara

Not Expected to Be .500: Vanderbilt, Ole Miss, LSU, Texas Tech, Michigan, Villanova, Butler, Washington St.

Also Considered: Tulane, Middle Tennessee, Rice, Belmont, Bradley, BYU, Hofstra