The NIT - What's this all about? Teams not qualifying for the NCAA tournament
have the opportunity to be invited to one of three
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 the top two
teams in the ACC and SEC which do not make the NCAA tournament as
well as the top team in the top 12 conferences as ranked by KNIT
(an average of computer rankings used by the NCAA). Additional
automatic bids are awarded to regular-season conference champions
outside of the top 12 conferences that had a KNIT score better
than 125. All games are held on campus sites except for the Final
Four and Championship which is held at a neutral site (2023: Las
Vegas, 2024/2025/2026: Indianapolis).
The College Basketball Crown features an 8-team postseason
tournament held in Las Vegas. The Big East, Big Ten and Big 12
each have committed to send at least two teams to this tournament.
The CBI features up to 16 teams with all games held at one site
(in 2025: Daytona Beach, FL). It was announced that the CBI would
be canceled for 2026.
Schools have been known to decline an invitation to any of these
tournaments due to the lack of interest in playing in a tournament
other than the NCAAs, the desire to focus on recruiting for next
season or the pay-to-play nature of these tournaments.
To get a feel for what kind of teams are involved, these were the
2026 participants along with their record and NET ranking.