INDIANAPOLIS—Seton Hall, Indiana State, Villanova and Wake Forest highlight the 32-team National Invitation Tournament field released today by the NIT committee.
A new format for 2024 includes two exempt teams from each of the six conferences: Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC.
The first round is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, March 19-20, and the second round will be played on March 23-24. The quarterfinals will take place on March 26-27 and four teams will advance to historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis for the semifinals on Tuesday, April 1. 2. The NIT will conclude with the championship game on Thursday, April 4.
First-round action at campus sites features No. 1 seeds Seton Hall, Wake Forest, Indiana State and Villanova facing Saint Joseph's, App State, SMU and VCU, respectively.
Other first round games include North Texas at LSU, Boston College at Providence, UNLV at Princeton, Xavier at Georgia, Richmond at Virginia Tech, Cornell at Ohio State, Minnesota at Butler, Loyola Chicago at Bradley, San Francisco at Cincinnati, South Florida at UCF, Kansas State at Iowa, UC Irvine at Utah.
For the third straight season, the NIT only seeded the top half of the 32-team field. The NIT Committee placed the bottom 16 unseeded teams in the bracket as close as possible to their natural area of interest.
Bradley will make its 23rd appearance in the National Invitation Tournament, the most of any school in the 2023 field.
“We're excited about the field we were able to put together,” said Tim Duncan, New Orleans vice president of athletics and recreation and NIT committee chair. “There will be some great matchups in the early rounds and it's really exciting to bring the history of the NIT (the beginning of college basketball) to historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.”
NIT games are televised on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN+. Additional information about NIT can be found at www.NCAA.com/NIT.
