Preseason NIT Bracketology

The 2024-25 college basketball season is coming up fast! KenPom, T-Rank and EvanMiya have all released rankings of all 364 teams competing in Division I this season. I used those to put together this projected NIT bracket.

A few initial thoughts:

1. No one has any idea what to do with the College Basketball Crown. The new tournament is supposed to kick off in the spring of 2025. The original release said that it would include teams from the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 "along with additional at-large participants". I have no idea how to interpret that statement. Given that the SEC and ACC decided to stick with the NIT for now I think we can safely assume that top teams from those leagues aren't going to play in an upstart new tournament. This projection only includes teams from those three leagues in my CBC tournament.
2. The ratings aren't in sync on a number of high profile teams. Rutgers is one of the teams I am projecting to the CBC for now. The Scarlet Knights have high-profile 5-star recruits and a team ranked in the initial AP Top 25. KenPom and EvanMiya aren't buying it though. Those two systems rate Steve Pikiell's team 63rd and 72nd respectively. T-Rank is much higher at 19th. Splitting the difference still leaves Rutgers as a bubble team for the NCAA Tournament. We've seen teams with that type of talent miss the NCAA Tournament entirely, so I don't think this is that controversial of a projection. Other teams that are in a similar boat near the bubble are Miami FL and Dayton.
3. The lack of Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 teams might create bracketing issues for the NIT. If teams from those leagues do opt out of the NIT, there will definitely be some issues bracketing the tournament. The reason is because it will likely result in a flood of ACC teams. Here I had to break procedure because I ended up with too many ACC teams for them to fit nicely into brackets. That could be a big challenge down the line.
4. I am assuming that automatic NIT bids still exist for the ACC and SEC. This doesn't really matter once you remove the other power conferences, but I'm assuming that those schools will still be guaranteed home games. The dissolution of the PAC-12 (at least for this season) means that this would only really affect four teams anyways. (The "auto bids" are on the 1 and 2 seed lines in this projection.)

Projected NIT Bracket:

1. Miami FL

8. Loyola Chicago

4. Utah St.

5. San Francisco

3. San Diego St.

6. Notre Dame

2. South Carolina

7. Syracuse

1. Dayton

8. Wichita St.

4. Vanderbilt

5. UAB

3. SMU

6. Colorado St.

2. LSU

7. Georgia Tech

1. Oklahoma

8. Saint Louis

4. Virginia

5. George Mason

3. Boise St.

6. Washington St.

2. Missouri

7. Bradley

1. Georgia

8. Virginia Tech

4. Nevada

5. Saint Joseph's

3. Louisville

6. North Texas

2. NC State

7. UNLV

College Basketball Crown:

1. Northwestern

2. Rutgers

3. USC

4. Nebraska

5. TCU

6. Providence

7. Penn St.

8. UCF

9. Minnesota

10. Utah

11. Washington

12. Arizona St.

13. Butler

14. West Virginia

15. Seton Hall

16. Georgetown

Other Possibilities: Florida St., Santa Clara, Stanford, South Florida, Massachusetts, Louisiana Tech, Yale, Florida Atlantic, Western Kentucky, Sam Houston St.

If you count, you'll see that the CBC bracket includes seven teams from the Big Ten, five from the Big 12 and four from the Big East. That seems about the right breakdown given how many Big 12 teams are likely to make the NCAA Tournament. Four of the CBC participants are projected to be under .500 if you look at projected regular season records on T-Rank right now (Arizona St., WVU, Seton Hall and Georgetown).

Is this really what's going to happen? Your guess is as good as mine right now. I'll be keeping an ear out for any news I hear about the college basketball's rapidly shifting postseason as we try and venture into this new world.