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.


The 2023 NIT and CBI Teams

NIT
CBI
38
North Texas
24-7
93
Indiana State
21-12
40
Rutgers
19-14
95
San Jose State
19-13
43
Oklahoma State
18-15
113
Southern Utah
18-12
44
Liberty
23-8
116
Charlotte
18-14
47
Oregon
19-14
130
Duquesne
20-12
54
New Mexico
21-11
157
Stetson
15-13
57
UAB
24-9
162
Tarleton
13-16
60
Clemson
19-14
165
Eastern Kentucky
17-13
61
Michigan
17-15
171
Cleveland State
20-12
62
Florida
16-16
184
Radford
17-14
64
Yale
19-8
202
Rice
15-15
65
Sam Houston State
21-7
210
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
18-11
69
Colorado
17-16
229
Western Carolina
15-15
70
Cincinnati
20-12
239
North Alabama
15-14
71
Central Florida
18-14
255
USC Upstate
14-15
72
Bradley
24-9
257
Southern Indiana
13-16
73
Washington State
17-16

74
Utah Valley
22-8



75
Villanova
17-16



76
Virginia Tech
19-14



77
Seton Hall
16-15



80
Wisconsin
17-14



81
Vanderbilt
20-14



82
Toledo
26-7



84
Santa Clara
22-9



86
Hofstra
23-9



87
Southern Miss
22-7



96
UC Irvine
21-11



123
Youngstown State
22-9



128
Eastern Washington
21-10



228
Morehead State
17-11



244
Alcorn State
18-13




Contact: bracketproject@gmail.com