NIT is practically obsolete as more teams just blow it off. Blame the NCAA.
After all these years, we’ve finally figured out what gets college basketball fans fired up about the NIT: The audacity of teams who don’t want to play in it.
On a Selection Sunday where plenty of grievances were aired about who did and didn't get into the men’s NCAA Tournament, one of the most widely shared social-media clips came courtesy of Tom Crean, the former Indiana and Georgia coach who went on ESPN and railed against the teams – like St. John’s, Ole Miss, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma and Memphis – that opted against playing in the NIT.
“There’s no question about it, I would want to coach,” Crean said, his voice rising with practically every syllable. "I would want to develop my team. You’ve got bigger staffs than you’ve ever had. There’s plenty of time for the portal. There's plenty of time to talk to recruits. There’s plenty of time to negotiate NIL deals. There’s not plenty of time to play. There’s not plenty of time to get your players on the floor and give them a chance to get better. There’s not plenty of time for guys to continue to play that may never get to play again, and that to me is absolutely ridiculous.”
In the broad scope of things, Crean is absolutely right. As disappointing as it is for teams that barely missed out on March Madness, everyone in college basketball has limited opportunities to play. It's a shame that many programs and players no longer embrace the idea of keeping their season going as long as possible and ending the year on a high note.
But like many things in sports, the NIT ain't what it used to be. The current state of college sports has made it practically obsolete. And the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the entity that owns and operates the NIT: The NCAA.
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While 32 teams indeed accepted NIT invitations, this year's field includes teams that finished in 11th place in the Big 12 (UCF and Cincinnati), SEC (Georgia) and ACC (Boston College), along with a Xavier team that played 33 games and won just 16.
Meanwhile, several teams that were close to getting in the NCAAs decided to just pack it in for the year. Oklahoma cited the “well-being of our student-athletes,” while a statement from Rick Pitino indicated that St. John’s thought it was best to “prepare for next season.”
A decade ago, this would have been unthinkable. If you got snubbed by the NCAA selection committee, you sucked it up and played. Maybe you mailed it in, but you played.
Little by little, though, the culture around these consolation prizes has changed.
We have seen it in college football, where many teams struggle to put a representative product on the field for bowl games because of how many players opt out or transfer the moment the regular season ends. And now we’re seeing it in basketball, which has made the NIT seem completely optional and secondary to where the real action is this week: The transfer portal.
While the NCAA has no choice but to reduce transfer restrictions to almost nothing thanks to the litany of lawsuits it’s fighting, somebody had the bright idea to open up the transfer portal Monday. In effect, that means free agency has already started. And at that point, human nature is going to take over for a lot of players who are far more invested in their next team than the one they’ve been on for the last year.
That's the reality of the current environment, and it goes for the coaches as well.
In the past, one of the great benefits of playing in the NIT was the chance to keep developing players and building momentum for the next year. Even though nobody really wanted to be in that tournament, teams and fan bases who advanced through the first couple of rounds suddenly had a trophy to play for and a reason to be invested again in the outcome.
For younger teams in particular, it was fairly common to see them use an NIT championship to springboard a deep NCAA run the following season.
But in the transfer-portal era, the majority of coaches no longer view their rosters as long-term projects. Everything is year-to-year. Even if they want to retain all of their players, some of them are inevitably going to think there’s a better situation out there to pursue.
Also, if you didn’t make the NCAA Tournament, it most likely means there will be pressure from fans and administrators to improve the roster. So what’s more valuable: The time spent practicing and playing for an NIT championship or diving into the portal to start recruiting upgrades?
What makes this situation even more self-defeating is the NCAA’s decision last year to stop awarding automatic NIT bids to regular-season champions who lost in their conference tournaments. Previously, this had given a lot of good mid-major teams a platform to keep their seasons going and get national television exposure they might not have received otherwise.
But the NCAA was spooked by news that the Big East, Big 12 and Big Ten were in conversations with Fox, their television partner, to hold a 16-team postseason event in Las Vegas that would essentially be a direct competitor with the NIT.
So in response, the NIT got rid of its automatic bids, opening up more spots for power-conference teams. Then, lo and behold, a bunch of power-conference teams decided the NIT wasn't worth their time.
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"It's each coach's choice, I get it," Crean ranted. “You take away a chance to play the games, to put your team on the floor. Let them opt out, all right? The bowl season has it all the time. Let it happen, who cares. Give your players and coaches a chance to keep coaching and playing and don’t shortchange – if a guy doesn’t want to play, go sit down. If a coach doesn’t want to coach, go recruit. But there’s got to be enough people to put five, six, seven people on the floor and go play. It makes absolutely no sense to me.”
In a perfect world, Crean would be spot-on. It's a shame that the mere act of playing more college basketball has lost value and even become a burden to roster-building for some programs.
But that's the world the NCAA has built. It should either adjust or get rid of the NIT altogether.