National Invitation Tournament

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 as the NIT Season Tip-Off (formerly the Preseason NIT), and was founded in 1985. The second is a post-season tournament played in March, with its final rounds in New York City and Madison Square Garden, and 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.

1 History
2 NCAA takes control
3 The Stigma of the NIT
4 Selection process
5 Women's Tournaments
6 Men's post-season NIT championships
7 External links

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History

The post-season tournament pre-dates the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship tournament by one year; in the tournaments' early years there was often some contention as to which champion was in fact the nation's best collegiate basketball team. Beginning in the 1960's, however, the NCAA tournament began to take control, relegating the NIT to its current consolation status, albeit gradually. As late as 1970, Coach Al McGuire of Marquette University, the 8th-ranked team of 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 play 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 unthinkable today.

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 is currently 40 teams as of 2002.

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.

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. In recent years, as interest in collegiate sports in general has declined in the Metropolitan New York area as interest in professional sports has increased, and interest in the NIT has declined as it has been dismissed as "playing for 66th place", earlier rounds are now played on campus sites and only the semi-final and final rounds are held at the Garden.

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NCAA takes control

In 2005, the NCAA purchased the NIT tournament from the MIBA for $56.5 million to settle an anti-trust lawsuit. The NIT alleged that compelling teams to accept invitations to the NCAA tournament was an illegal use of the NCAA's powers. (This rule stems from 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.

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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 chant "N-I-T! N-I-T!" to taunt the players in the closing seconds. 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 chant to a defeated team, "The three-letter word...was far more cutting than any four-letter word they could have hollered." source

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". 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. In other years, Louisville, Georgia Tech, and Georgetown University have declined to play in the NIT when they did not make the NCAA tournament.

One such team was the University of 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.

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 Preseason NIT carries no such stigma, and is one of many popular season-opening tournaments held every year around the country (alongside the Maui Invitational, the Great Alaska Shootout, et cetera).

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Selection process

In the past, NIT teams were selected in consultation with ESPN, the television home of the NIT [1]. The goal of the NIT was to sustain the MIBA financially. Therefore, schools selected to play in the NIT were often mediocre major conference teams which had large television fan bases. The amount of fans attending games was also a factor. This is one reason why the University of New Mexico was invited virtually every year they had a winning season but failed to qualify for the NCAA tournament [2]. Seeding considerations and home field 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 more mediocre major conference teams.

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. This may have an effect on the last few teams invited. However, in 2006, all teams qualifying for the NIT had a record greater than .500.
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 will no longer help select the teams. Instead, a committee of six former NCAA head coaches, C.M. Newton (Alabama), Dean Smith (North Carolina), Don DeVoe, Reggie Minton, John Powers and Carroll Williams, 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 go to major conference mediocre teams that could sell more tickets [3].

Furthermore, ESPN will continue 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." NIT Committee Chairman C.M. 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 were not going to play this thing for television and move games around." [4]. Another positive consideration is that a #1-seeded team that goes to the semifinals will have three home games, which helps ticket sales.

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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. The women currently play both pre- and post-season tournaments similar to the men.

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