NIT announces new team selection protocol

NIT announces new team selection protocol and new committee members


Sixteen “exempt” teams, as well as others that may qualify automatically as regular-season conference champions.

Exempt teams will include the top two teams not selected to the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship from both the Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference. In addition, the top team not selected to the NCAA championship from the top 12 conferences (based on the Ken Pomeroy Rating) will receive an exempt bid to the NIT. The top teams from each conference will be determined based on the average of the teams’ ESPN Basketball Power Index (BPI), Kevin Pauga Index (KPI), NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), Ken Pomeroy Rating (KenPom), Strength of Record (SOR), Torvik ranking and Wins Above Bubble (WAB) ranking.

All teams receiving an exempt bid are guaranteed the opportunity to host a first-round game.

In addition to the exempt teams, regular-season conference champions that are not otherwise selected to the NCAA championship can earn an automatic bid to the NIT as long as that regular-season champion has an average of 125 or better across the BPI, KPI, NET, KenPom, SOR, Torvik and WAB rankings. The rest of the 32-team field will be selected as at-large teams by the NIT Committee.

 

Translation: We will allow a few more mid-majors, but the Big South, MEAC, etc. can go screw.

This specific wording intrigues me. If team A and team B from the ACC decline bids, does that mean teams C and D automatically get in on the terms that A and B would have enjoyed? Or do they have to meet the requirements for the rest of the field?

 

The Joe Lunardi of the next generation will be spawned from some current kid deciphering the meanings of all this and explaing it on YouTube to rabid South Podunk State kids wanting their school to make the NIT

 

NCAA putting a lot of work into something that, taps mic, clears throat ...

No one gives an absolute fuck about.

That said, the continued starvation of mid-majors continues apace.

 

1. Get rid of the conference tournaments

2. Open the NCAA Tournament to everybody. All 355 D-1 teams. Seeded 1-355 by computer rankings

3. There would have to be 99 play-in games involving 198 teams, to reduce the field to a geometric 256. These play-in games would be played the Tuesday following the end of the regular season.

4. Top 64 teams by the rankings all host First Round Districts at their home courts. Each District will include 4 teams, the host team and three others picked strictly on geographic proximity as determined by Google Maps.

5. The first weekend of District Tournaments will reduce the field to 16. The NCAA Tournament proceeds as it does now.

6. At that point, the NIT can pick its field of 32 out of all teams eliminated from the NCAA tournament.

 

Are there 99 basketball courts in Dayton?

 

Nope, the higher ranked of the play-in teams host those games.

 

According to KenPom, there are 362 teams in D-I this season. It's possible some of them are on probationary status and ineligible for the tournament.

But taking 355 as a number, No. 157 is Purdue-Fort Wayne and would miss the play-in round. No. 158 is Wright State and would host No. 355 Houston Christian, so Dayton will get a play-in game after all!

EDIT: Whoops, last season's numbers came up. This year there are 364 teams.

 

Only the NIT could continue to fuck up a meaningless tournament that's already been fucked up.

At some point you would think somebody would figure out the 10th- and 11th-place teams from the P4 leagues suck and don't deserve post-season participation.

 

For a secondary tournament it actually was set up about as well as it could be with the No. 1 seeds the first four out, making sure conference champs got a spot somewhere and the top seeds hosting.

I get the greedy nature of all, but what do the power teams that didn't make the NCAA really get from these changes (and last year's were ridiculous)? No one truly cares. No one goes. I doubt many people watch. Just weird and not hiding at all the power bias even if the power teams could give a crap.

 

Sort of like the FA Cup. Although I'd go a step further and bye the top 64 to avoid some seriously awful first round beatdowns.