A New Preseason NIT Projection

I put out an offseason NIT bracket projection earlier this offseason, but that was before the news that the NCAA was changing the NIT selection process for 2024-25. Given those changes it only makes sense to re-release my preseason NIT bracket projections!

This projection still includes sending all of the Big East, Big 12 and Big Ten teams that appear to be in good shape for the postseason to the College Basketball Crown. This is despite the fact that those conferences will clearly be in Ken Pomeroy's top 12 and earn one of the preferred seeds in the NIT. (I wish I could be a fly on the wall when an Athletic Director has to explain to Chris Collins that they're giving up a home game to fly to Las Vegas for a tournament in a few weeks instead.)

I used KenPom's current conference rankings to determine the automatic bids. The at-large teams were determined by the preseason composite ratings I had calculated earlier that mash up KenPom, T-Rank and Evan Miya. While this doesn't match the NIT process exactly, it's a good approximation in the offseason.

The results are below. The only manual adjustment I made really was excluding Virginia from the bracket entirely. The Cavaliers have been rocked by the sudden retirement of Tony Bennett and it's unclear if UVA will actually be able to live up to its mediocre preseason expectations.

The other big change? Home games for Seattle (!), UAB, Louisiana Tech, San Francisco, and Bradley – These all come through being the projected second best team in a top 12 KenPom conference. (There are no automatic bids for projected conference champs with 125 rating or higher because I don't project top seeds losing in a conference tournament until it happens.)

Technically every 5-8 seed is unseeded and I could bump them around to get better regional matchups and such, but I want to give readers some sense of where a team stands in the pecking order prior to the season starting. (I might change the format of these posts in the future to help explain this fact.)

Projected NIT Bracket:

1. Oklahoma (SEC 1)

8. Loyola Chicago

4. Boise St. (MWC 1)

5. Notre Dame

3. LSU

6. North Texas

2. SMU

7. Utah St.

1. Georgia (SEC 2)

8. Syracuse

4. San Francisco (WCC 1)

5. San Diego St.

3. Dayton (A10 1)

6. UNLV

2. Louisville (ACC 3)

7. Western Kentucky

1. Miami FL (ACC 1)

8. Vanderbilt

4. Seattle (WAC 1)

5. Nevada

3. UAB (AAC 1)

6. Virginia Tech

2. Missouri (SEC 3)

7. George Mason

1. N.C. State (ACC 2)

8. Saint Joseph's

4. Bradley (MVC 1)

5. Colorado St.

3. Louisiana Tech (CUSA 1)

6. Georgia Tech

2. South Carolina

7. Washington St.

Other Teams With Automatic Bids (But College Basketball Crown): Northwestern (Big Ten 1), Providence (Big East 1), TCU (Big 12 1)

Other Possibilities: Wichita St., Florida St., Santa Clara, Stanford, South Florida, Massachusetts, Yale, Florida Atlantic, Sam Houston St.