Last week, the NIT Board announced changes to the NIT selection process that reward the so-called power six conferences: the Atlantic Coast; Big East; Big Ten; Big 12; Pac-12; and Southeastern. The big changes, starting with the next tournament in 2024, are these:
• Regular-season conference champions that do not win their conference tournament and do not receive NCAA at-large bids will not will receive automatic bids to the NIT.
Wright State, for example, received its first NIT bid in 2019 by winning the Horizon League regular-season championship. This season, Wright State wouldn’t receive an automatic NIT bid if it wins the Horizon League regular-season title.
• The NIT will guarantee two bids to the two top-ranked teams, regardless of win-loss record, in the NCAA Evaluation Tool from each of the six power conferences that do not make the NCAA tournament. The 12 teams selected in this way will host first-round games.
Under the new criteria, Ohio State would have earned a NIT bid last season with a 16-19 overall record and 5-15 Big Ten record. It ranked 49th in the NET, which made it the second-highest ranked Big Ten team of the teams that didn’t make the NCAA tournament. Ten Big Ten teams ranked in the top 50. Eight made the NCAA tournament.
The announcement of the changes came less than two months after news broke of FOX negotiating to create a tournament in Las Vegas that would include the top 16 teams from the Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 that didn’t make the NCAA tournament. Those teams would have decline NIT invitations to play in the proposed tournament.
Sullivan took over as UD’s AD in 2015. In eight seasons, Dayton has earned three NCAA tournament bids— if you count the 2020 bid that never came because of the pandemic — and played in the NIT three times. It might have played in the NIT a fourth time last season but chose not to pursue postseason opportunities because of injuries.
Sullivan said he respects the NIT, a tournament Dayton has won three times (1962, 1968 and 2010), but the program doesn’t set out with the goal of playing in the NIT. Playing in the NCAA tournament and advancing in the NCAA tournament is always the goal.
Sullivan’s concern about the NIT changes is related to a “significant shift in principles” by the NCAA.
“We have been long told that conference affiliation is not discussed in the committee room and that each team is reviewed independently on its own merits,” Sullivan said. “The second thing that we’ve been told is that the NET is just a sorting tool.”
In other words, the tournament selection committee would use the NET to seed teams but not select teams.
“The NET is a great sorting tool for the committee, but it’s not the be-all, end-all for us,” NCAA Tournament Selection Committee Chair Tom Burnett said in February. “I look at the NET as kind of a first step.”
Sullivan worries the NIT changes signal what could be coming to the NCAA tournament. He hopes to gain a greater understanding of what went into the NCAA’s decision in the coming weeks.
“I have a lot of respect for our friends over in Indianapolis at the NCAA,” Sullivan said, “but I think a lot of people didn’t see this one coming. It’s not about the NIT. It’s bigger than that.”
There was backlash against the NIT changes on social media in part because of the lack of discussion or communication before the announcement.
“No one had a clue these NIT changes were coming,” wrote Jeff Goodman, a national college basketball writer, on X. “The NCAA did what it never does. Made a quick decision — but this time it screwed it up.”
Goodman added, “No one wants to see a .500 SEC or ACC team over the Summit or SoCon league regular-season champ in the NIT. And add in the fact that the .500 SEC or ACC team doesn’t even wanna be there.”
Atlantic 10 Commissioner Bernadette V. McGlade was also surprised by the timing of the announcement late on a Friday afternoon.
“There was virtually no prior discussion with any of the constituent groups within the association, which is not typically the way decisions are made if there are significant changes in any selection processes,” she said. “My second immediate thought was certainly not necessarily focused on the NIT as an event. I think the A-10 will still be positioned well as far as the NIT is concerned, but I do think that conceptually, the preferential treatment that has been bestowed upon essentially six conferences for an NCAA-owned event — that they sort of are in this protected class for selection and access — philosophically, that’s not a good direction for the association to be going.
“I don’t think fundamentally it’s good for — quote, unquote — basketball as a whole, especially given that March Madness, the NCAA tournament, is the glue and the complete financial package that holds the NCAA together. I think that this decision to really put six leagues in a protected class in the long run is really detrimental to the big picture of basketball.”
McGlade said the NIT decision could have a ripple effect on any postseason event.
“If you’re going to preferentially carve out only six of 32 Division I conferences, what does that say to student-athletes that you’re recruiting?” she said. “What does that say to the overall mission and values in the mission statement of the NCAA in terms of access and opportunities for all at the various division levels?”
Sullivan wondered about the timing of the NIT announcement. It came less than two weeks before the start of the season on Nov. 6. He wonders what it means for the debate about expanding the NCAA tournament and believes the idea of the NIT being rolled into the NCAA tournament merits consideration.
Asked about his option on an expanded tournament, Sullivan said it’s getting more difficult to compare teams — say a 19-14 West Virginia versus a 27-7 A-10 team — because of the dwindling number of games between those teams. The move by the Big Ten, Big East, ACC and Pac-12 to 20 conference games has reduced the number of non-conference games they play. That means fewer chances for the A-10 and similar conferences to play teams from the power conferences.
“We don’t shy away from building a resume,” Sullivan said, “but having access to that resume is certainly something that keeps me up at night, and anything that makes that pathway to scheduling any harder than it is certainly a concern. I’m of the opinion that it’s just a math problem. It’s not really a philosophical problem. It’s not really, ‘What size should the tournament be?’ We have an intractable math problem in my view that warrants further discussion.”
The NCAA’s Transformation Committee recommended last January all Division I sports with at least 200 teams include 25% of those teams in postseason tournaments. There are 362 D-I men’s basketball programs, so at least 90 teams would make the NCAA tournament if that number was the goal.
UD coach Anthony Grant said a year ago he would favor an expanded tournament.
“I think certainly anytime you can add more opportunities for teams to compete in the postseason, I don’t really see a negative to that,” Grant said. “I don’t think it would impact the quality or the attractiveness of the tournament.”
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