Selection process
Two automatic qualifiers from each of the Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 conferences as well as ten at-large teams will be selected from the pool of teams that did not qualify for the NCAA tournament. [1] Although the official announcement of the launching of the tournament provided no details regarding selection criteria, [2] a September 2023 proposal for the tournament indicated that NET rankings would be used to select teams, which, at the time, were expected to include only Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 squads. Further, the proposal indicated that teams selected from those three conferences would be required to participate in the College Basketball Crown, which would make it impossible for them to also participate in the National Invitation Tournament, should they be selected or receive an automatic bid. [3]
The NCAA does not allow schools invited to an NCAA championship tournament to decline and then compete in another postseason event. However, this rule does not apply to the NIT, a secondary post-season competition administered by the NCAA. In response to attempts to launch the College Basketball Crown during the 2024 season, the NCAA changed the NIT selection process, introducing automatic bids for teams from high-major conferences while eliminating the automatic bids formerly reserved for teams who won their conference's regular-season title but lost their conference tournament (usually mid-major teams). These changes were criticized by many, including mid-major schools, [4] with the NCAA calling them "a preemptive attempt to keep the NIT viable long-term." [5] Ahead of the 2025 NIT, the two automatic bids previously given to the Big 12, Big East and Big Ten conferences, i.e. the conferences committed to participate in the CBC, were revoked, leaving two automatic bids only for the Atlantic Coast (ACC) and Southeastern (SEC) conferences. The NIT also guarantees one bid to each of the 12 conferences other than the ACC and SEC that have the highest Kenpom rating. Finally, regular-season conference champions not in the NCAA tournament qualify for an automatic bid to the NIT, if their average ranking using seven diffferent metrics is 125 or better. [6]
If the top two non-NCAA tournament teams from each of the Big 12, Big East and Big Ten are all committed to play in the CBC, and those three conferences all rank in the top 12 conferences (other than the ACC and SEC), the NIT would be unable to get a team better than the third best non-NCAA tournament team from each of those three leagues. Since the CBC has 10 at-large bids, it may extend some of those to ACC and SEC teams, which could further dilute the quality of teams participating in the NIT, if those teams accept a CBC bid.
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2025 College Basketball Crown 