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!