Magic Week NIT Bracketology

It's the magical week where the AP Poll predicts the national champion! (Don't know what I'm talking about? Read John Gasaway's piece on ESPN+.) While I don't think an NIT bracket at this point is that predictive, we do know something about every team in the country at this point.

We can also start to see how the new selection rules for the NIT might play out. I'm currently using KenPom as an NET proxy. It appears that at least one power conference team is going to get pulled from quite far down the bracket and into a protected seed. The most likely candidate conference right now is the Big 12. Say 10 teams from the Big 12 make it into the NCAA Tournament. That would leave just four for the NIT to pick from, potentially including having to take one with a losing record. In this scenario it's UCF, which probably wouldn't be in the bracket except for their protected seed, that benefits. The Golden Knights are 76th in KenPom, so they're not a bad team, but they're also projected to go 15-15 on both KenPom and T-Rank.

It's also possible that the higher ranked NET team in a conference like the Big East won't have the best NIT resume. Xavier, for instance, is ranked higher than Butler and St. John's in KenPom right now (just Butler in T-Rank), but it's hard to say the Musketeers will have a better resume than either of those teams come Selection Sunday.

It's also going to be fascinating to watch where teams like Memphis, all the Mountain West teams that don't get the automatic NCAA bid, and Saint Mary's ends up. For now I have a number of those teams in the NCAA Tournament, but there is a long way to go.

Last NCAA At-Larges: Kansas St., USC, Saint Mary's, Texas, Providence, TCU, San Diego St., New Mexico

NIT Bracket (Protected Seeds in Bold, Bubble Teams in Italics):

1. Texas Tech (Big 12 1)

8. Minnesota

4. Mississippi

5. Washington

3. N.C. State (ACC 2)

6. Missouri

2. Michigan (Big Ten 1)

7. Saint Joseph's

1. Oregon (Pac-12 1)

8. Nevada

4. Xavier (Big East 1)

5. Iowa

3. Butler (Big East 2)

6. Duquesne

2. Indiana

7. Drake

1. South Carolina (SEC 2)

8. St. Bonaventure

4. UCF (Big 12 2)

5. Rutgers

3. Arkansas (SEC 1)

6. Maryland

2. Virginia Tech (ACC 1)

7. Seton Hall

1. Nebraska (Big Ten 2)

8. Georgia

4. Washington St.

5. Boise St.

3. UCLA (Pac-12 2)

6. Utah St.

2. St. John's

7. Syracuse

Also Considered: George Mason, Boston College, VCU, Appalachian St., Louisiana Tech, North Texas, SMU, Richmond, San Francisco, Florida St., Tulane, Wichita St., Bradley, Missouri St., Southern Illinois, Loyola Marymount, Yale, Hawaii, Drexel, Kent St.

Feast Week NIT Bracketology

It's Feast Week! We're two weeks into the regular season of college basketball and things have been all over the place. Let's use our new two weeks of data to put together a new bracket before a plethora of games kick off.

The SEC really benefits from the NIT's new "protected seed" format here because South Carolina and LSU would barely be in this tournament if they weren't part of that conference.

The hardest team to figure out early in the season is probably Saint Mary's. The Gaels look like a 50/50 NCAA Tournament team given their early season results, but just missing the NCAA Tournament (as like the fifth team out) for a team from the West Coast Conference could be devastating in terms of NIT selection because of the new rules. You can see that here in how the bracket developed. They'd be competing with Mountain West teams for maybe one open home game.

NIT Bracket (protected seeds in Bold, bubble teams in italics):

1. Iowa

8. Boston College

4. Colorado St.

5. Washington St.

3. Virginia Tech

6. VCU

2. Ohio St.

7. Duquesne

1. Pittsburgh

8. Stephen F. Austin

4. South Carolina

5. Maryland

3. Stanford

6. New Mexico

2. Kansas St.

7. North Texas

1. Seton Hall

8. Florida St.

4. LSU

5. UCF

3. St. John's

6. Rutgers

2. N.C. State

7. UAB

1. Wisconsin

8. Bradley

4. Washington

5. Saint Mary's

3. Cincinnati

6. Boise St.

2. Northwestern

7. Yale

Last 6 NCAA At-Large Teams: Florida Atlantic, Nevada, Nebraska, Providence, Texas Tech, Michigan

Seriously Considered: Wichita St., St. Bonaventure, Indiana St., Missouri St., Long Beach St., Kent St., UMass Lowell

Considered: Penn St., Wake Forest, San Francisco, Utah St., Tulane, SMU, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, Richmond

Five Risers, Five Fallers A Week In

The opening week of the season is in the books and already there have been some shakeups. There has been some movement that could definitely affect our NIT outlook by the end of the season. Here is a quick look at 10 of the most surprising teams (five up and five down).

Five Up:

James Madison: The Dukes have risen 51 spots in KenPom through the first eight days of the season, second only to Purdue Fort Wayne. JMU already has wins at Michigan St. and Kent St., which is quite the combination. KenPom currently predicts that Mark Byington's team will go 23-6 and 13-5 in the Sun Belt. Given the remaining teams in the conference, that would probably mean taking some losses that would put JMU squarely on the bubble come Selection Sunday. Still, the Dukes seemed primed for at least an NIT invite even without the existence of automatic bids.

Michigan: I didn't even have Michigan as a protected seed in the NIT when I did my preseason bracket. My bad! The Wolverines have far surpassed all preseason expectations and are now 23rd in KenPom and look like a dangerous NCAA Tournament squad thanks to Dug McDaniel.

Princeton: While a 2-bid Ivy League is probably a long shot, the league does seem to be setting itself up for a potential NIT bid this season. Yale is still the class of the league according to projection systems (the Bulldogs did win at Loyola Marymound on Sunday), but the Tigers have victories over Rutgers on a neutral court and at Hofstra on their early resume. Wednesday's game at Duquesne is shaping up to be an extremely interesting NIT bubble battle as is the Dec. 2 matchup against Furman. How Princeton handles the rest of its non-conference schedule could help determine if the Ivy League positions itself for an NIT bid. (Shoutout to 3-1 Penn too. The Quakers just took down Villanova and are another one of KenPom's biggest risers. Steve Donahue's team looks like another dangerous Ivy League spoiler along with 3-0 Cornell.)

Utah: The Utes might also be playing themselves out of the NIT. While they haven't played the hardest competition yet, Craig Smith's team has stomped Eastern Washington and UC Riverside. Things pick up later this week with the Charleston Classic. Utah will take on Wake Forest and, with a win, potentially Houston and then one of LSU, Dayton, North Texas and St. John's. Those games will provide an excellent early test for a team that could be playing itself away from the bubble.

Akron & Toldeo: Let's cheat and put these two MAC teams together. The Zips have risen 20 spots thanks to a win at South Dakota St. and a comfortable home victory against Southern Miss. The problem for Akron is the quadrant system. They're going to have to do something in the Cayman Islands Basketball Tournament starting on Sunday in order to have a reasonable shot at the NIT because there aren't many Quad I or II type games on their non-conference schedule. Toledo, on the other hand, has a couple of shots thanks to games at West Virginia (see below) and neutral court contest versus New Mexico in the Ball Dawgs Classic. The MAC should be quite competitive this season between these two teams and Ohio and Kent St., so it'll be interesting to see if any of those four teams can put up a resume that will secure an NIT at-large bid.

Five Down:

UNLV: Wednesday's loss to Southern was one of the most shocking results of the opening week of the season. The Runnin' Rebels did follow it up by blowing out Stetson, but the non-conference schedule is extremely daunting. KenPom now projects that UNLV will finish 13-16 (8-10 in the Mountain West), which would be a far miss from UNLV's goals entering the season when I had them as a fringe NIT team.

St. Bonaventure and VCU: It hasn't been a great start to the non-conference slate for the Atlantic 10. The league hasn't had any of its top tier teams separate from the pack early on in the season and VCU and St. Bonaventure, which looked like potential postseason teams, have struggled early on. The Bonnies lost a home game to Canisius (yikes!) while VCU opened its season by getting beat by McNeese St. There's a lot of time for both these teams to get on track and the Rams in particular have an extremely challenging non-conference schedule in Ryan Odom's first season, but the early returns have me wondering if the Rams might take a little bit of time to gel. 

West Virginia: The Mountaineers lost to Monmouth at home on Friday, another one of the biggest upsets in college basketball this season. Josh Eilert was already trying to hold this team together with duct tape and having to play a Big 12 schedule is going to make it extremely difficult to play postseason basketball unless something dramatically changes. KenPom currently projects the Mountaineers to go 12-18 (5-13 in Big 12), which is a huge departure from their preseason rankings when I thought they'd be able to sneak into the back half of the NIT.

LSU: LSU lost to Nicholls St. at home on Friday and now the Tigers are projected to go 14-15 (7-11 SEC). Honestly, outside of the obvious NCAA Tournament contenders the SEC is pretty weak. It'll be interesting to see if one of South Carolina, Missouri, LSU and Georgia emerge as an obvious NIT team, especially considering the new automatic bid process.

Charleston: There are a lot of teams I could've picked here, but I think things are most dire for last season's regular season and tournament CAA champions. The Cougars lost by 18 to Duquesne on Friday and are looking at a 50/50 game to open the Myrtle Beach Invitational against Vermont. Charleston has a bunch of other tough games remaining on its non-conference schedule and KenPom is now pretty skeptical about what the Cougars can do against it. In addition, UNCW, Drexel and Hofstra seem to be legitimate challengers this season. The CAA seems likely to not have an NIT team at all.

Opening Day NIT Bracketology

College basketball season is here! Everyone is celebrating in their own way. Mine? Creating a new NIT bracket. This bracket follows the new rules announced by the committee last month. The 12 automatic bids that were given protected seeds are bolded. The italics represent teams on the bubble.

One of the biggest challenges with this bracket is that there were a number of Mountain West teams that made their way in after I looked at the preseason KenPom and T-Rank predictions. Putting that many teams from the same conference into the bracket with only one having a top seed (Nevada as a 4) is a hassle. There's some mid-major flavor here. But I'm not assuming teams like Liberty, Drake, Grand Canyon, Charleston or Yale are going to lose their conference tournaments. Those are the types of teams though that could also enter the at-large conversation in the far distant future.

Opening Day NIT Bracket (protected in BOLD, bubble in italics)

1. N.C. State (ACC #1)

8. UNLV

4. Cincinnati (Big 12 #2)

5. Seton Hall

3. Washington (Pac 12 #2)

6. Boise St.

2. Oklahoma (Big 12 #1)

7. Duquesne

1. Providence (Big East #1)

8. Washington St.

4. Nebraska (Big Ten #2)

5. Oklahoma St.

3. LSU (SEC #2)

6. UAB

2. Virginia Tech (ACC #2)

7. VCU

1. St. John's (Big East #2)

8. St. Bonaventure

4. Rutgers

5. West Virginia

3. New Mexico

6. Pittsburgh

2. Iowa (Big Ten #1)

7. Loyola Chicago

1. Utah (Pac 12 #1)

8. Stephen F. Austin

4. Nevada

5. Xavier

3. Michigan

6. Colorado St.

2. Missouri (SEC #1)

7. Wake Forest

A Sad Day For The NIT

This is a sad day for the NIT.

For most of the past seven seasons (without those COVID complications) the NIT had guaranteed teams that won their conference regular season title a chance to continue playing basketball. It was a decent consolation for strong mid-major teams from 1-bid leagues that didn't qualify for the NCAA Tournament. They were guaranteed to continue playing, even after what had to be the most devastating loss of their season.

That guarantee is gone. Today the NCAA announced that it is changing the NIT selection process and one of the major changes is removing the automatic bids for conference regular season champions. Why? Well read for yourself.

For the 2024 NIT, conference regular season champions that do not win their conference tournament or are not otherwise selected to the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship will not receive an automatic bid to the NIT.  Instead, the NIT will guarantee two teams (based on the NET rankings) from each of six conferences (Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern). The top two teams in the NET rankings not qualifying for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament from each conference, regardless of won-loss record, will be selected.  Additionally, the 12 teams automatically selected will be guaranteed the opportunity to host a game in the first round of the NIT. 

Once the 12 automatic qualifying schools have been selected, the NIT Committee will select the 20 best teams available to complete the tournament’s 32-team field.  Based on the NIT Committee’s evaluation, the best four teams of the 20 at-large teams selected will complete the 16 first round hosts, with deference given to the “first four teams out” of the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship, as determined by the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball.  Additional teams from the six conferences with AQs are eligible to be selected as at-large teams and can be selected as hosts.

The NCAA is removing those bids so it can guarantee that it has space for 12 teams from power conferences. In terms of basketball competition or fairness this is absolutely nonsensical. But this move isn't about either of those things. It's about the fact that the NCAA needed to appease its power conference brethren when it came to the NIT because FOX was trying to form an alternative. Matt Brown, whose newsletter you should really be reading, laid out more than a month ago why that situation was bad for everyone. This is the first domino.

It probably won't be the last either.

The practical implications of this are many, especially for an NIT Bracketologist. It'll be easy enough to know which teams are trending towards being the 12 automatic bids and hosts. Figuring out the other 20 slots will become a much bigger challenge.

Who this really sucks for though are those teams from the bottom of Division I. Maybe Toledo, Yale, Hofstra, Southern Miss, Bradley and Utah Valley still get a bid to the 2023 NIT if these rules were in effect (and that's a big maybe). But schools like Alcorn St., Youngstown St., Eastern Washington, and Morehead St. would have found themselves on the wrong side of that bubble on Selection Sunday.

That sucks. Morehead St. beat Clemson (who would've been guaranteed a spot under the new rules) in the first round of the NIT last season. That matters. It would never have happened in this new world.

What would take their place? Well, 16-16 Texas Tech would've been in the field while undergoing massive upheaval due to a coaching change. So would've 16-19 Ohio State. Two Big East schools, Villanova and Seton Hall, would've been guaranteed home games instead of going on the road to Colorado and Liberty respectively. In fact, the Flames probably don't even manage to get awarded a home game under this new selection format.

This is a new direction for the NIT. It's a worse direction. I hope this is where it ends, but I feel like that won't be the case.

P.S. I guess I have to put together a new preseason NIT bracket under these circumstances.

 

Way Too Early NIT Bracketology, Oct. 12 Edition

We're inching closer and closer to the season. (So close that I can start talking about Northwestern and the NIT on The Barking Crow.) This time of year is great because there are tons of preview magazines (including Blue Ribbon, for which I wrote about the Horizon League) and rankings available.

I used some of them, including T-Rank, KenPom's new H.U.M.A.N. poll and Evan Miya's brand new rankings to build my latest NIT bracket. I also peaked at Joe Lunardi's NCAA Tournament bracketology as well. There is definitely some consensus at the top of these polls, but when you get down to the bubble and especially into the range of the NIT, things just fall apart.

What I think we do know though is that a few leagues look to be in line to grab a number of NIT bids. For whatever reason it appears those leagues mostly fall out west this season with the disintegrating Pac-12 and the Mountain West leading the way. Much like the ACC did last season, both of these conferences seem primed to have a few elite teams and then a compact middle that will battle it out during conference play. If none of the teams in that middle class get particularly lucky, then they could all find themselves in the NIT.

Ultimately I went with my gut in building this bracket, but the large number of Mountain West and Pac-12 teams did pose some problems in bracketing, especially on the 3/6 lines. Another league to watch that could produce multiple NIT participants? The Atlantic 10. The league will be looking for a bounce back season overall and if some of the top teams perform as expected they could fall right into the NIT's lap.

NIT Bracket (italics is bubble)

1. Stanford

8. Nevada

4. Rutgers

5. Seton Hall

3. Virginia Tech

6. St. Bonaventure

2. LSU

7. Washington

1. Mississippi St.

8. UAB

4. VCU

5. West Virginia

3. Loyola Chicago

6. Wake Forest

2. Iowa St.

7. UNLV

1. BYU

8. Duquesne

4. Boise St.

5. Washington St.

3. Cincinnati

6. Colorado St.

2. Iowa

7. Pittsburgh

1. Nebraska

8. Arizona St.

4. Oklahoma St.

5. Xavier

3. Utah

6. Colorado St.

2. Providence

7. N.C. State

Others Considered: Wichita St., Charlotte, Drexel, UNCW, California (who knows!), Georgia Tech, Boston College

T-Rank Doesn't Think They'll Be .500: Florida St., Syracuse, Michigan, Minnesota, UCF, Butler, DePaul, Georgetown

McNeese State's Non-Division I Opponent Contracts

McNeese State was one of the first mid-majors to announce its non-conference schedule on July 18. Like most schools, McNeese State will be playing some non-Division I opponents. Unlike most schools, they're playing ones most people are completely unfamiliar with.

From Nov. 10-Nov. 14 McNeese State will play three straight home games non-Division I opponents: College of Biblical Studies - Houston (Nov. 10), Champion Christian (Nov. 13) and LeTourneau (Nov. 14). In addition, McNeese State will play the Mississippi University for Women on Dec. 5.

When teams from a higher division secure a home game against a lesser opponent it is typically done through some guaranteed payment. The total payment for those four games is $19,300, according to records obtained by NIT Bracketology. That's less than a quarter of what some Division I schools get paid to play one game at a Power 5 opponent, which should give you some sense of the savings McNeese is getting by playing these particular opponents. Here is the breakdown by game:

• College of Biblical Studies - Houston: $5,000
• Champion Christian College: $5,000
• LeTourneau University: $4,300
• Mississippi University for Women: $5,000

And some fun nuggets about a few of the contracts:

• The contract from the College of Biblical Studies - Houston is signed by Emmanuel Lalande, the Vice President for Enrollment and Student Services.
• The Champion Christian contract also includes: "12 rooms for 1 night at hotel in Lake Charles, LA".
• The Mississippi University for Women contract is signed by Dean Burrows, the head men's basketball coach. (The McNeese State schedule announcement also took care to note that the school has a men's basketball program.)

Last season McNeese played just one official game against a non-Division I opponent when they defeated Champion Christian 110-54 in their season opener. (They also played an exhibition against Ecclesia College on Dec. 5.) The victory over Champion was one 11 on the season. It seems like Will Wade is stepping up the practice.

See the contracts for yourself on our Documents page.