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National Invitation Tournament
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The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The association plays two tournaments each season. The first is played in November and is known with its sponsorship as the Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off (formerly the Preseason NIT), and was founded in 1985. The second is a post-season tournament played in March and April. In both cases, its final rounds are played at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the post-season event (called the MasterCard NIT as per sponsorship) was founded in 1938.
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Encyclopedia
The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The association plays two tournaments each season. The first is played in November and is known with its sponsorship as the Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off (formerly the Preseason NIT), and was founded in 1985. The second is a post-season tournament played in March and April. In both cases, its final rounds are played at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and the post-season event (called the MasterCard NIT as per sponsorship) was founded in 1938. In both common and official usage, "NIT" or "National Invitation Tournament" refers to the post-season tournament unless otherwise qualified. Both the pre- and post-season tournaments were operated by the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (MIBA) up until 2005, when they were purchased by the NCAA.
History
The post-season tournament pre-dates the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship tournament by one year.
Originated by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association in 1938, responsibility for administering the NIT was transferred two years later to local colleges, first known as the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Committee and in 1948, as the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (MIBA), which comprised representatives from the five New York City schools: Fordham University, Manhattan College, New York University, St. John's University and Wagner College. Of those five schools, only NYU (as of 2008) is not a Division I school; the Violets play in Division III.
Originally all of the men's teams qualifying for the tournament were invited to New York City and all games were played at Madison Square Garden. Earlier rounds are now played on campus sites and only the semi-final and final rounds are held at the Garden. C. M. Newton, an NCAA consultant, former basketball coach at Alabama, former University of Kentucky athletic director and executive director of USA Basketball, who is part of the NIT selection committee, has stated that he would like to restore the quarterfinal round to the Garden were it to become feasible.
The men's tournament originally consisted of only 6 teams, which later expanded to 8 teams in 1941, 12 teams in 1949, 14 teams in 1965, 16 teams in 1968, 24 teams in 1979, 32 teams in 1980, and 40 teams from 2002 through 2006. The tournament reverted to 32 teams for 2007.
In the tournaments' early years, the NIT often drew the nation's best collegiate basketball teams for several reasons. First, there was limited national media coverage of college basketball, therefore playing in "The Big Apple" provided tremendous media exposure for the team and players. This allowed players hoping for a shot at the NBA an opportunity to play before scouts for the largely east coast dominated league. The media exposure also allowed coaches to recruit better basketball players.
Second, the NCAA was originally a tournament among conference winners. Thus, the slots were filled by automatic qualifiers from little known conferences. However, many major universities such as Marquette, Notre Dame, DePaul, and Dayton did not belong to a conference. These "at large" teams were largely not allowed to participate in the NCAA. As late as 1970, Coach Al McGuire of Marquette, the 8th-ranked team in the final AP poll of the season, spurned an NCAA bid in protest of his team's placement in the Midwest Region, where his team would have to have played games further away from home than it would if it were in the Mideast Region. The team played the NIT instead, which they won. Such an action would be a violation of NCAA rules today. One of the "traditions" Marquette hangs its hat on is the legendary McGuire one-upping the NCAA in 1970 after receiving an unfavorable regional assignment. These independent schools showcased some of the top basketball of that decade and it is certainly within the realm of possibility that the 1970 team could have won either tournament. Third, many conferences such as the SEC were segregated, and allowing teams with black players to participate in the NCAA was problematic.
In 1950, City College of New York became the only school to win both the NIT and the NCAA tournaments in the same season. During the NIT's first 15 years or so, the winners were hailed National Champions by the National Media. Beginning in the mid 1950s, however, the NCAA tournament became the premier college tournament. The NCAA began expanding the field to include more conferences. Additionally, the NCAA tournament began awarding "at-large" bids to prominent teams. It also adopted national seeding to better balance its field, while at the same time placing powerful teams near their campuses in the early rounds whenever possible. Finally, the NCAA, being a national organization operating over the course of several months, was able to use television as a marketing tool. Over the course of two decades, the NIT was relegated to its current status as a "consolation" tournament.
NCAA takes control
In 2005, the NCAA purchased 10 year rights to the NIT from the MIBA for $56.5 million to settle an antitrust lawsuit, which had actually come to trial and was being argued until very shortly before the settlement was announced. The MIBA alleged that compelling teams to accept invitations to the NCAA tournament even if they preferred to play in the NIT was an illegal use of the NCAA's powers, and to testify in its behalf had subpoenaed well-known NCAA critic and then-Texas Tech coach Bob Knight. (This rule was instituted after Al McGuire's aforementioned snub in 1970.) In addition, it argued that the NCAA's expansion of its tournament to 65 teams was designed specifically to bankrupt the NIT. As part of the purchase of the NIT by the NCAA, the MIBA disbanded for the ten year duration.
The stigma of the NIT
So strong is the stigma of the post-season National Invitation Tournament as a "consolation" fixture that when teams with tenuous hopes of an NCAA Tournament berth lose away from home late in the season, opposing fans will taunt the players in the closing seconds with the prospect of having to play in the NIT. This is done regardless of whether the home team is headed for the NCAA Tournament or not. Irv Moss, a journalist for the Denver Post, once wrote of such a taunt to a defeated team, "The three-letter word...was far more cutting than any four-letter word they could have hollered."
Since the post-season NIT consists of teams who failed to receive a berth in the NCAA Tournament, the NIT has been humorously nicknamed the "Not Invited Tournament", "Not Important Tournament", "Nobody's Interested Tournament", "National Insignificant Tournament," or simply "Not In Tournament". It has also been seen as nothing more than a tournament to see who the "66th best team" in the country is (since there are now 65 teams in the NCAA Tournament). However, proponents of the NIT often point out that many of the NCAA Tournament participants would likely not win the NIT. Because 31 of the teams earn automatic bids in the NCAA Tournament, the claim that the NIT determines the "66th best team" is spurious as many of the automatic bid NCAA Tournament teams are in fact weaker than many of the NIT Teams.
David Thompson, an All-American player from N.C. State, called the NIT "a loser's tournament" in 1975. N.C. State, which had been the previous year's NCAA champion, refused to play in the tournament that year, setting something of a precedent. In succeeding years, other teams such as Oklahoma State, Louisville, Georgia Tech, and Georgetown have declined to play in the NIT when they did not make the NCAA tournament. One such team was Maryland; after being rejected by the NCAA selection committee in 2006, head coach Gary Williams announced that 19-11 Maryland would not go to the NIT, only to be told that the university had previously agreed to use Comcast Center as a venue for the NIT. The Terrapins were eliminated in the first round by the Manhattan College Jaspers. In 2008, however, Williams announced that if invited, the Terps would play, because it would serve as a chance to further develop six freshman players on his squad and to give senior forward James Gist more exposure. For other teams, however, the NIT is perceived as a step up in a program climbing from mediocrity or obscurity, and the response is more enthusiastic.
It should be noted that the NIT Season Tip-Off carries no such stigma (mainly because it serves as a pre-season tournament), and is one of many popular season-opening tournaments held every year around the country (alongside events such as the Maui Invitational and the Great Alaska Shootout).
Selection process
In the past, NIT teams were selected in consultation with ESPN, the television home of the NIT . The goal of the NIT was to sustain the MIBA financially. Therefore, schools selected to play in the NIT were often major conference teams with records near .500 that had large television fan bases and would likely have a respectable attendance for tournament games on their home court. The latter is one reason why New Mexico was invited virtually every year the Lobos had a winning season but failed to qualify for the NCAA tournament . Seeding considerations and home court advantage included the number of fans willing to show up to each game. In an effort to maintain some quality, a rule saying that a team must have a .500 record to qualify for the NIT was imposed. This prevented ESPN from suggesting major conference teams that finished at or very near the bottom of their conference standings but would likely garner good fan interest.
The NCAA announced a revamped selection process starting with the 2006 tournament. The main highlights are:
- Teams are no longer required to have .500 or greater records to receive bids. Since this change, all teams receiving invitations for the NIT have had a record greater than .500.
- Similar to the automatic bids the NCAA Tournament grants for all conference tournament champions, all teams that won regular-season conference championships but failed to earn NCAA tournament bids are guaranteed places in the NIT. Thus, more teams from the low-major conferences may qualify. (Mid-major regular season conference champions have traditionally been invited.)
In addition, the selection process has been made transparent. ESPN no longer had a hand in the selection of the teams. Instead, a committee of former NCAA head coaches, chaired by Newton, and including Gene Keady (Purdue), Don DeVoe (Tennessee), Rudy Davalos, Les Robinson, Reggie Minton (Air Force), John Powers and Carroll Williams among others, prepared a list of potential teams in advance. The seeding and balancing process is similar to that of the NCAA tournament, with the exception that higher seeded teams will always host games, unless extenuating circumstances occur. In the past, higher seeded mid-major teams would often be forced to travel to play less highly regarded major conference teams that would be likely to sell more tickets to the game .
ESPN continues to provide television coverage of the tournament. The NIT has a 10-year, $24.1 million contract with ESPN; this compares with the 11-year, $6.2 billion TV contract with CBS for the NCAA tournament.
These changes are intended to encourage participation by good college teams that would rather stay home than play in the NIT – to make it the "Little Dance" instead of the "loser's tournament." Newton stated, "What we want to have is a true basketball event, a real tournament, one where there's no preconceived ideas of who gets to New York. We'd love to have great crowds, but this is not a financial consideration. We want good television coverage, but we're not going to play this thing for television and move games around."
. Another consideration is that a number one-seeded team that goes to the semifinals will have three home games, which helps ticket sales.
Beginning with the 2007 tournament, the field for the NIT returned to the 32-team field used from 1980 through 2001, eliminating the eight "play-in" opening round where teams played to qualify for second round games against the top eight seeds. The tournament features four eight-team regions. The format did not affect the NIT's automatic bid to any regular-season conference champion that does not make the NCAA's field of 65. Seven teams earned an NIT bid that way in 2006.
A new attendance record for a NIT game was set at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, NY, March 19, 2007, at the Syracuse-San Diego State game. Syracuse won the game 80-64 with the attendance total of 26,752. The old record of 23,522 was set by Kentucky in 1979.
Women's tournaments
Since the 1970s, there has been a Women's National Invitation Tournament. It began as an eight-team tournament in Amarillo, Texas. However, this is affiliated with the NIT in name only. It was not connected with MIBA and was not purchased by the NCAA.
Men's Post-season NIT Championships
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Year | Champion | Runner-up | MVP | | 2008 | Ohio State | Massachusetts | Kosta Koufos, Ohio State | | 2007 | West Virginia | Clemson | Frank Young, West Virginia | | 2006 | South Carolina | Michigan | Renaldo Balkman, South Carolina | | 2005 | South Carolina | Saint Joseph's | Carlos Powell, South Carolina | | 2004 | Michigan | Rutgers | Daniel Horton, Michigan | | 2003 | St. John's + | Georgetown | None ++ | | 2002 | Memphis | South Carolina | Dajuan Wagner, Memphis | | 2001 | Tulsa | Alabama | Marcus Hill, Tulsa | | 2000 | Wake Forest | Notre Dame | Robert O'Kelley, Wake Forest | | 1999 | California | Clemson | Sean Lampley, Cal | | 1998 | Minnesota ^ | Penn State | None ^^ | | 1997 | Michigan * | Florida State | None ** | | 1996 | Nebraska | Saint Joseph's | Erick Strickland, Nebraska | | 1995 | Virginia Tech | Marquette | Shawn Smith, Virginia Tech | | 1994 | Villanova | Vanderbilt | Doremus Bennerman, Siena | | 1993 | Minnesota | Georgetown | Voshon Lenard, Minn. | | 1992 | Virginia | Notre Dame | Bryant Stith, Virginia | | 1991 | Stanford | Oklahoma | Adam Keefe, Stanford | | 1990 | Vanderbilt | Saint Louis | Scott Draud, Vanderbilt | | 1989 | St. John's | Saint Louis | Jayson Williams St. John's | | 1988 | Connecticut | Ohio State | Phil Gamble, UConn | | 1987 | Southern Miss | La Salle | Randolph Keys, Southern Miss | | 1986 | Ohio State | Wyoming | Brad Sellers, Ohio State | | 1985 | UCLA | Indiana | Reggie Miller, UCLA | | 1984 | Michigan | Notre Dame | Tim McCormick, Michigan | | 1983 | Fresno State | DePaul | Ron Anderson, Fresno State | | 1982 | Bradley | Purdue | Mitchell Anderson, Bradley | | 1981 | Tulsa | Syracuse | Greg Stewart, Tulsa | | 1980 | Virginia | Minnesota | Ralph Sampson, Virginia | | 1979 | Indiana | Purdue | Butch Carter and Ray Tolbert, Indiana | | 1978 | Texas | N.C. State | Jim Krivacs and Ron Baxter, Texas | | 1977 | St. Bonaventure | Houston | Greg Sanders, St. Bonaventure | | 1976 | Kentucky | UNC Charlotte | Cedric Maxwell, UNC Charlotte | | 1975 | Princeton | Providence | Ron Lee, Oregon | | 1974 | Purdue | Utah | Mike Sojourner, Utah | | 1973 | Virginia Tech | Notre Dame | John Shumate, Notre Dame | | 1972 | Maryland | Niagara | Tom McMillen, Maryland | | 1971 | North Carolina | Georgia Tech | Bill Chamberlain, North Carolina | | 1970 | Marquette | St. John's | Dean Meminger, Marquette | | 1969 | Temple | Boston College | Terry Driscoll, BC | | 1968 | Dayton | Kansas | Don May, Dayton | | 1967 | Southern Illinois | Marquette | Walt Frazier, S. Illinois | | 1966 | BYU | NYU | Bill Melchionni, Villanova | | 1965 | St. John's | Villanova | Ken McIntyre, St. John's | | 1964 | Bradley | New Mexico | Levern Tart, Bradley | | 1963 | Providence | Canisius | Ray Flynn, Providence | | 1962 | Dayton | St. John's | Bill Chmielewski, Dayton | | 1961 | Providence | Saint Louis | Vin Ernst, Providence | | 1960 | Bradley | Providence | Lenny Wilkens, Providence | | 1959 | St. John's | Bradley | Tony Jackson, St. John's | | 1958 | Xavier | Dayton | Hank Stein, Xavier | | 1957 | Bradley | Memphis State | Win Wilfong, Memphis State | | 1956 | Louisville | Dayton | Charlie Tyra, Louisville | | 1955 | Duquesne | Dayton | Maurice Stokes, St. Francis (Pa.) | | 1954 | Holy Cross | Duquesne | Togo Palazzi, Holy Cross | | 1953 | Seton Hall | St. John's | Walter Dukes, Seton Hall | | 1952 | La Salle | Dayton | Tom Gola and Norm Grekin, La Salle | | 1951 | BYU | Dayton | Roland Minson, BYU | | 1950 | CCNY | Bradley | Ed Warner, CCNY | | 1949 | San Francisco | Loyola | Don Lofgran, San Francisco | | 1948 | Saint Louis | NYU | Ed Macauley, Saint Louis | | 1947 | Utah | Kentucky | Vern Gardner, Utah | | 1946 | Kentucky | Rhode Island | Ernie Calverley, Rhode Island | | 1945 | DePaul | Bowling Green | George Mikan, DePaul | | 1944 | St. John's | DePaul | Bill Kotsores, St. John's | | 1943 | St. John's | Toledo | Harry Boykoff, St. John's | | 1942 | West Virginia | Western Kentucky | Rudy Baric, West Virginia | | 1941 | LIU | Ohio | Frankie Baumholtz, Ohio | | 1940 | Colorado | Duquesne | Bob Doll, Colorado | | 1939 | LIU | Loyola | Bill Lloyd, St. John's | | 1938 | Temple | Colorado | Don Shields, Temple |
+ St. John's won the 2003 NIT title, but later vacated the title due to an ineligible player.
++ Marcus Hatten of St. John's was the MVP of the 2003 tournament, but vacated the award with St. John's title.
^ Minnesota won the 1998 NIT title, but later vacated the title and forfeited its entire 1997-98 schedule due to academic fraud.
^^ Kevin Clark of Minnesota was the MVP of the 1998 tournament, but vacated the award with Minnesota's title.
* Michigan won the 1997 NIT title, but later vacated the title and forfeited its entire 1996-97 schedule due to ineligible players.
** Robert Traylor of Michigan was the MVP of the 1997 tournament, but was later declared ineligible and his award vacated.
See also
External links
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