The NIT - What's this all about? Teams not qualifying for the NCAA tournament
have the opportunity to be invited to one of two other
postseason tournaments:
The NIT features
a 32-team field chosen right after the NCAA chooses the 68 teams
in its tournament. It awards automatic bids to regular
season conference champions who do not otherwise go to the NCAA
tournament. Also, the first 4 teams out of the NCAA tournament
become automatic 1 seeds in the NIT. All games are held on campus
site except for the Final Four and Championship which is held at a
neutral site (2023: Las Vegas).
The CBI features 16 teams with all games held at one site (in
2023: Daytona Beach, FL).
Schools have been known to decline an invitation to the CBI
tournament due to the lack of interest in playing in a third-tier
tournament (e.g., "We're Indiana. We don't play in the CBI.") or
the pay-to-play nature of these tournaments.
To get a feel for what kind of teams are involved, these were the
2023 participants along with their record and NET ranking.