NIT Bracketology, March 13

Honestly, it was a pain to put together tonight's NIT bracket. There are seven ACC teams in this bracket, which makes it hard to assign every team somewhere without breaking bracketing principles. I'm not even 100% sure the NIT would follow its bracketing principles in this case. (It would've made was more sense for instance for Florida St. to go to UCF and Syracuse or Boston College to go to Providence.)

This bracket is as of 11 pm ET on Wednesday, March 13. There are still games going on and there are still NET implications to figure out. In particular, Xavier and Maryland are lurking right below this NIT bracket.

On the NCAA side, the main switch I made was moving Texas A&M into the tournament and Mississippi St. out. MSU just doesn't have the metrics of the other bubble teams and I find it hard to see them in the bracket.

Also, I still have Richmond and South Florida in the NCAA Tournament, so it's still possible two slots could open up there. Obviously that would dramatically change this bracket.

The biggest move on the bottom of the NIT is that I decided to replace Duquesne with VCU. The reason I made this decision was basically the NET difference between the two teams. While I think Duquesne's resume is probably slightly better, I'm not convinced the committee will override NET in that way.

I am heading to the Atlantic 10 live tomorrow during the day. I'm hoping to get a good look at Richmond, VCU and Massachusetts in particular. Thursday is typically the biggest moving day for the NIT bracket, so I expect another update late tomorrow.

Last NCAA Teams: TCU, Oklahoma, Virginia, Seton Hall, St. John's, Michigan St., Texas A&M, Colorado, Colorado St., Indiana St.

NIT Bracket (automatic bids in bold, at-large in italics):

1. Wake Forest (ACC 1)

U. Appalachian St.

4. Mississippi (SEC 2)

U. Memphis

3. UCF (Big 12 2)

U. Florida St.

2. Providence (Big East 2)

U. LSU

1. Villanova (Big East 1)

U. Washington

4. Virginia Tech

U. VCU

3. Ohio St. (Big Ten 2)

U. Loyola Chicago

2. Pittsburgh (ACC 2)

U. SMU

1. New Mexico

U. Minnesota

4. Oregon (Pac-12 2)

U. San Francisco

3. Utah (Pac-12 1)

U. UNLV

2. Kansas St.

U. Syracuse

1. Mississippi St. (SEC 1)

U. NC State

4. Butler

U. Indiana

3. Cincinnati (Big 12 1)

U. Boston College

2. Iowa (Big Ten 1)

U. Bradley

Also Considering: Xavier, Maryland, Duquesne, Saint Joseph's, Massachusetts, St. Bonaventure, North Texas, Yale, Cornell