Turning down an NIT invite has become a popular trend. After missing the cut for the NCAA tournament this year 17 teams declined an NIT invite. Pittsburg, St. John’s, Oklahoma, Memphis, Ole Miss, Indiana, Syracuse, USC, UCLA, Washington, Arizona State, Stanford, California, Florida State, Maryland, St. Bonaventure, Oregon State, all passed and decided to end the season rather than participate.

After the devastation of missing the NCAA tournament, Indiana St center Robbie Avila described the team as “motivated as ever” to win the NIT upon receiving the consolation bid. St John’s Hall of Fame coach Rich Pitino went the other direction. Although stating he respected the tournament, the Red Storm’s season was over and an NIT bid declined. Tom Crean former Georgia, Indiana, and Marquette head coach had strong words on his platform as a Big Ten analyst.  “It’s each coach’s coice, I get it, but if you take away a chace to play the games, to put your team on the floor, that’s just wrong. Give your players  and coaches a chance to keep coaching and playing and don’t shortchange them” Crean stated, “There’s plenty of time for the portal.”.

The NCAA Tournament started in 1939 and only invited eight teams from designation regions. The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) predated by a year in 1938 with all the games being played in Madison Square Garden. The NIT started with only six teams before expanding to twelve, sixteen, thirty-two, briefly forty in the 2000’s when the NCAA took over the tourney (the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association-a New York group-founded and ran the NIT for almost 70 years), before reverting back to the 32 teams we know today. It was actually possible for teams to play in both the NCAA Tournament and the NIT for a period. The City College of New York Beavers (CCNY) was the only team to win both in the same season back in 1950 but it wasn’t without huge controversy. Covered in the 2019 book “The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team” and 1998 HBO doc “City Dump:The Story of the 1951 CCNY Basketball Scandal” the entire starting group was arrested for point shaving the following season. The NCAA ruled teams couldn’t participate in a different post-season tournament if they declined an NCAA Tournament bid after the 1970 season. The #8 ranked Marquette Golden Eagles favored their NIT placement that seasosn and went on to win the NIT that still held similar prestige at that time. They weren’t the first squad to make that choice, but they were the last.

In the 1970’s a clear hierarchy for post-season play was created when as the NCAA tournament expanded, loosened participation requirements, and increased TV coverage. Teams have been opting out of NIT for over 50 years, so that aspect isn’t new. NC State won the NCAA Tournament in ’74 and missed the cut in ’75 with an NIT invite extended. Star guard David Thompson called the NIT “a loser’s tournament” and the Wolfpack declined to participate. The selection process hasn’t always helped the quality of teams invited as relevance declined. In 2017, rules were implemented that teams didn’t require .500 overall records to be invited, however all teams that won a regular-season conference title but not auto-bid for the NCAA tournament automatically received an invitation. A nice consolation prize that should, in theory, keep the competition level high. The rule occasionally pushed out better power-6 schools. ESPN’s selection process previous to 2017 often wasn’t based on how good a team was vs television ratings.

In 2023, the NIT wiped out the regular season conference winner auto bids and instead incorporated the NET rankings to guarantee two spots to each power-6 conference before filling out with at-large teams. Ironically, the format is already in need of revamping. The Pac-12 now dissolving and gluttonous opt-outs prevented the two-team minimum from being met by the Pac 12 (four in the NCAA tourney, seven declined, Utah accepted) and pushed bottom-feeders like a 16-17 Xavier team into the bracket.

The correlation is debatable but roughly half of all NIT winners since 2000 have made the NCAA tournament the following season. It still seems infinitely beneficial to prep a team from a coaching and game planning perspective for one-five games. Experience prepping for quick game turnaround against unfamiliar opponents on neutral court has proven to be a difficult task. According to Sportsmediawatch.com the NIT in 2024 received more viewship than any NIT since 2016. It also killed all other sports programming except for live NBA games which depended on the matchup. Live basketball (especially outside football season) has a window in March to capture attention of audiences and recruits.

The biggest detractors complain that roster movement, primarily the transfer portal opening as soon as the regular season concludes, makes playing in the NIT a liability. Astute counter-points are that the NCAA tournament is being played while the transfer portal is open and most schools have staff members that can monitor initial portal movement while post-season tourneys are finishing up. It seems like a weak excuse to simply not play without stating so.

It isn’t clear what the picture looks like for the NIT going forward. NCAA expansion is being discussed again which threatens all other post-season tournaments. Yes, there are others. The College Basketball Invitational (CBI) was founded in 2007 with sixteen participants that pay $27,500 each to play. The Championship game was actually a three game series up until 2019. In 2023 with NIL in effect prize payouts were added to those teams reaching the Final Four. Seattle upset Highpoint with Fairfield and Arkansas State reaching the semifinals. Seattle finished #107 per KenPom with High Point #115. Another tournament called the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT) was founded in 2009 and gone through different formats with up to 32 teams in 2012. Only nine competed in 2024 with Norfolk State coming out the Champ of a bracket with Purdue Fort-Wayne, Alabama A&M, Tarleton State, Bowling Green, Abilene Christian, Austin Peay, Texas Southern, and Texas A&M-CC. Tarleton State finished at #129 per KenPom-and Purdue Fort-Wayne #157 the other participants in the 200s or lower. ESPN has partial contracts for these tournaments. FloSports streams early rounds of the CBI.

So would you rather your team play out an NIT bid? I would. For the coaching staff and the players that stay I think it’s important. Even if we move away from the NIT the tournament model preparation seems important and too easily dismissed. Even by vets like Pitino.