Another new NIT selection process announced Tuesday by the NCAA will distribute 16 bids to "exempt" teams meeting certain criteria. It marks the second year in a row that criteria for NIT access has changed as the event seeks to solidify its place in an evolving postseason landscape.
The move comes amid the advent of the College Basketball Crown, a new postseason tournament launched by Fox Sports that will begin for the 2024-25 season. The 16-team event, held in Las Vegas, will award automatic bids to the top two non-NCAA Tournament teams from the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East. From there, the rest of the bracket will be filled out by a committee.
Consequently, the NIT will now distribute a total of four automatic or "exempt" spots to the top two non-NCAA Tournament teams from the ACC and SEC, the two major conferences not aligned with the College Basketball Crown. After those four bids are accounted for, the other 12 exempt teams will be the highest-ranked non-NCAA Tournament teams from the nation's top 12 conferences.
The determination on the top 12 conferences will be made by Ken Pomeroy's ratings of the leagues. However, determining who the top teams are from those conferences will be a decidedly more convoluted process that incorporates KenPom, BPI, KPI, NET, strength of record, BartTorvik.com and "wins above bubble" metrics.
All 16 exempt teams will be guaranteed the chance to host first-round games. Other guaranteed spots in the NIT will be preserved for regular-season conference champions that average 125 or better across the BPI, KPI, NET, KenPom, SOR, Torvik and WAB rankings. Any remaining spots in the 32-team field will be filled on an at-large basis by the NIT committee.
Historically, the NIT awarded automatic bids to any regular-season conference champions who didn't make the NCAA Tournament. However, that changed for the 2023-24 season when the NIT announced that its only automatic spots would be for the top two non-NCAA Tournament teams from the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC.
That move was met with pushback for how it put the squeeze on low-and mid-major programs who won their conference's regular season title but failed to win their conference tournament. In the past, those teams could look forward to the NIT as a consolation prize if they missed out on an NCAA Tournament bid by virtue of a loss in their conference tournament.
The new selection criteria for the 2024-25 NIT should ensure greater access — and more chances to host games — for low-and mid-major schools. However, that is a largely unavoidable byproduct of the Fox-sponsored event that will be siphoning off the most-attractive teams from the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12.
