Busting Brackets
Fansided

NCAA Basketball : Examining the NIT Field

By Matt Wadleigh

Mar 11, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Frank Martin talks to South Gamecocks guard PJ Dozier (15) during the second half of game nine of the SEC tournament against the Georgia Bulldogs at Bridgestone Arena. Georgia won 65-64. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 11, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Frank Martin talks to South Gamecocks guard PJ Dozier (15) during the second half of game nine of the SEC tournament against the Georgia Bulldogs at Bridgestone Arena. Georgia won 65-64. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit

Welcome to your preview of the OTHER NCAA Basketball bracket.

The NIT Tournament.

Related Story: Previewing the Midwest Region

The official name is National Invitational Tournament. However, a lot of people like to call it the “Not In Tournament” or the “Non-Important Tournament.”

The NIT is a single-elimintation tournament filled with 32 teams, including a lot of snubs and teams that were left out of the NCAA field of 68.

When we take a deeper look inside this year’s field of 32, we see a couple teams that really shouldn’t be playing in the NIT, but rather should be a part of the Big Dance.

Let’s start by looking at the top-seeds in each group. ESPN announced that the top seeds in the NIT were the First Four Out of the field of 68. Those four were South Carolina, Valparaiso, Monmouth, and St. Bonaventure.

South Carolina rolled past High Point in their first game of the tournament on Tuesday, beating the eighth-seeded Panthers by 22 points. Valparaiso beat Texas Southern on Tuesday night as well, but not so easily, as Valpo won the game 84-73.

The next two top-seeds both played their opening round games on Wednesday night. Monmouth beat Bucknell, 90-80 and St. Bonaventure, a team many bracketologists had in the field, got beat by Wagner in a close one, 79-75.

The rest of the field, including the results of the first round, are as follows:

  • No. 3 Ohio State beat No. 6 Akron, 72-63.
  • No. 4 Florida State beat No. 5 Davidson, 84-74.
  • No. 4 Creighton rolled past  No. 5 Alabama, 72-54.
  • No. 2 Florida crushed No. 7 North Florida, 97-68.
  • No. 3 Washington beat No. 6 Long Beach State, 107-102.
  • No. 2 San Diego State beat No. 7 IPFW, 79-55.
  • No. 2 St. Mary’s edged No. 7 New Mexico State, 58-56.
  • No. 3 Georgia beat No. 6 Belmont, 93-84.
  • No. 3 Virginia Tech beat No. 6 Princeton, in overtime, 86-81.
  • No. 4 George Washington topped No. 5 Hofstra in a tight one, 82-80.
  • No. 4 Georgia Tech had no problem beating No. 5 Houston, 81-62.
  • And lastly, No. 2 BYU beat No. 7 UAB with ease, 97-79.

Looking at all the teams in the field, we see a lot of teams that should have been in the tournament.

SDSU, St. Mary’s, Valpo, Monmouth, South Carolina, and St. Bonaventure all had reasonable cases to be in the Big Dance, but were left out for the likes of Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Temple, Michigan, Tulsa, and Vanderbilt, who lost by 20 to Wichita State Tuesday in the First Four game.

We also don’t see one team that probably should have been in the field: potential top-pick Ben Simmons and the LSU Tigers. LSU coach Johnny Jones announced on Selection Sunday that his team would not be participating in any postseason tournament, which came as a surprise to almost everybody.

Mar 12, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; LSU Tigers forward Ben Simmons (25) and LSU Tigers head coach Johnny Jones leave the floor after a loss to Texas A&M Aggies during the SEC conference tournament at Bridgestone Arena. Texas A&M Aggies won 71-38. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 12, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; LSU Tigers forward Ben Simmons (25) and LSU Tigers head coach Johnny Jones leave the floor after a loss to Texas A&M Aggies during the SEC conference tournament at Bridgestone Arena. Texas A&M Aggies won 71-38. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports /

For Ben Simmons, his last game in purple and gold for LSU will be a 71-38 thrashing in the SEC Tournament to the hands Texas A&M, who lost to Kentucky in the SE Title game in overtime.

Coach Jones had a few reasons as to why his team will be ending their season early.

“We will be able to utilize this time to get better and start preparations for next season,” Jones said in his release. “We fell short of the mark of getting to the NCAA Tournament; I take full responsibility for this team, and will do things necessary to make sure we are able to reach one of our main goals at LSU in the future.”

To go a little bit further, freshman Ben Simmons responded by dropping out of LSU earlier this week, as well as selecting an agent for the upcoming NBA Draft, where he will almost certainly be the top pick.

We also see a lot of teams that won their regular season conference championships, but came up short in their respective conference tournaments.  Teams that win the regular season title but don’t receive in automatic bid in the field of 68 are guaranteed a spot in the NIT field.

Those teams include:

  • St. Bonaventure (Tie-A10)
  • Wagner  (Northeast)
  • Belmont (OVC)
  • Monmouth (MAAC)
  • Hofstra (CAA)
  • UAB  (CUSA)
  • Akron  (MIDAM)
  • High Point (Big South)
  • North Florida  (Atlantic Sun)
  • Bucknell (Patriot)
  • Texas Southern  (SWAC)
  • Valparaiso  (Horizon)
  • IPFW (Summit)
  • San Diego State (Mountain West)
  • St. Mary’s (West Coast Conference)
  • And New Mexico State (WAC)

When we count them up, that makes 16 teams that won their regular season conference championship, but lost during Championship Week in their respective conference tournaments. That is insane to think about. That’s exactly half of the field that won their regular season crowns.

These 16 teams played well enough all year to win their conference but came up short in the tournaments and failed to receive an automatic bid, and in some cases, an at-large bid. Seeing all these teams miss the Big Dance because of the conference tournaments makes us all wonder: Should the NCAA do away with the conference tournaments?

When Holy Cross, a team that finished second to last in the Patriot League with a 5-13 record in the conference gets an automatic bid by winning the tournament, something doesn’t seem right.

Perhaps the lone bright spot about the top seeds missing out on the Big Dance and receiving a bid for the NIT is the fact that they get to play at least one more home game.

For players like SDSU senior Winston Shepard, getting to play in front of your home crowd once again is a bright spot in a heartbreaking situation. For what its worth, Shepard posted a triple-double Tuesday night in the opening round against IPFW, marking the first time in school history that an Aztecs player has recorded such a game.

With 16 teams left in the NIT, there seems to be no clear favorite. The rest of the tournament should be exciting, but obviously no where near the magnitude of the NCAA Tournament.

More busting brackets: Previewing the West

Who will come out on top? Will it be a team that won their conference outright in the regular season? Or will it be another team? By the end of the month, we will have our 2016 NIT Champion.

Home/NCAA Basketball News