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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 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. 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 1960s, 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 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 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 , 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, given the tremendous expansion of the field at the same time 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. C. M. Newton, an NCAA consultant, former basketball coach and former University Of Kentucky Athletic Director , 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. NCAA TAKES CONTROL In 2005, the NCAA purchased the NIT tournament 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 NIT 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 Texas Tech coach and well-known NCAA critic Bobby Knight to testify on its behalf. (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. 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-America n 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 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''). SELECTION PROCESS In the past, NIT teams were selected in consultation with was invited virtually every year they had a winning season but failed to qualify for the NCAA tournament {Link without Title} . 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:
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 (Tennessee), 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 {Link without Title} . 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." {Link without Title} . Another positive consideration is that a #1-seeded team that goes to the semifinals will have three home games, which helps ticket sales. 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. MEN'S POST-SEASON NIT CHAMPIONSHIPS
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