The National Invitational Tournament (NIT) is one of college basketball's longest standing traditions. Once considered the top postseason tournament in college basketball, the NIT now gives teams whose NCAA Tournament bubble bursts another shot at high-level postseason play.
Now, with other postseason tournaments on the rise, the NIT's rules and qualifications continue to change. For the 2024 tournament, the NIT took away automatic bids for any team that wins its conference's regular-season title but does not qualify for the NCAA tournament. The 2024 field guaranteed berths to 12 teams from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, Pac-12 and SEC regardless of record, which hindered the path to the NIT for low- and mid-major regular-season champions.
For 2025, the NIT's selection process is changing yet again. The ACC and SEC will now get two automatic NIT bids, while some other conferences will get one. A competing tournament birthed by FOX is slated to start in 2025 in a partnership with their TV partners, the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East. The NIT hoped to fend off the FOX tournament last year with its selection process updates, but FOX officially announced the tournament earlier this year, prompting more shifts for the NIT.
What’s New in NIT Qualification Criteria for 2025?
The NIT's board announced new qualification procedures for their 2025 tournament, which includes bids going to 16 "exempt" teams, as well as others that may qualify automatically as regular-season conference champions.
Exempt teams include the top two teams not selected for the NCAA Tournament from both the ACC and SEC. Additionally, the top team not selected for March Madness from the top 12 conferences (based on KenPom rankings) will receive an exempt bid to the NIT. All teams who receive an exempt bid are guaranteed the opportunity to host a first-round game.
How the Selection Committee Will Assess Teams in 2025
The top teams from each conference will be determined based on an average of a number of ranking systems: ESPN Basketball Power Index (BPI), Kevin Pauga Index (KPI), NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), Ken Pomeroy Rating (KenPom), Strength of Record (SOR), Torvik ranking and Wins Above Bubble (WAB) ranking.
After the exempt teams, regular-season conference champions who are not selected for the NCAA Tournament can earn an auto-bid to the NIT as long as they have an average of 125 or better across the ranking systems' averages. The rest of the 32-team field will be selected as at-large teams by the NIT's committee, which includes:
- Tubby Smith (former coach)
- Jeff Jones (former coach)
- Tim Duncan (committee chairman, senior deputy athletics director at Memphis)
- Dena Freeman-Patton (vice president and director of athletics at Morgan State)
- Clifton Douglass (Conference USA's associate commissioner for basketball)
- Phil Martelli (former coach)
- Gary Waters (former coach)
- Bob Williams (former coach)
New Rules for the 2025 NIT
Outside of qualification and selection updates, the NIT also approved an experimental rule allowing coaches to appeal out-of-bounds calls in the last two minutes of games. This eliminates the official's voluntary ability to review out-of-bounds calls in the last two minutes and instead requires a coach to challenge.
Coaches can challenge a call with no timeouts remaining. However, if the challenge fails and the team has no timeouts left, the challenging team will be assessed a technical foul and the opponent would be awarded two free throws.
How Teams Can Adapt to the New NIT Rules to Secure a Spot
To get an exempt bid, teams must excel not only on the court but in the bevy of ranking systems the NIT committee will use to determine conference rankings. The welcome change is that in addition to the two automatic bids for the ACC and SEC, the top team from the 12 best conferences who aren't selected for the NCAA Tournament gets an auto-bid as well. This helps mid-majors get into the tournament, as opposed to last year's qualification process which prioritized Power Six conferences.
If a team doesn't get an exempt bid, though, they'll need to showcase success over a strong schedule and, in particular, grab some wins on the road. Some ranking systems the committee uses to build their averages give more weight to road wins. That doesn't mean you can go belly-up at home because home losses are given a greater weight than road losses.
It's helpful for coaches and athletic directors to build a strong non-conference schedule to build an advantage over other teams in the committee's eyes.
The main strategy to securing a bid is excelling in conference play, though. Sitting atop a conference, even if you miss an NCAA Tournament bid based on conference tournament play, puts you into the NIT for power and some mid-major conferences. Getting some tough conference wins on the road and taking care of business at home will put teams on the committee's radar.
Potential Impacts on Mid-Major and Underdog Teams
Last year's qualification tweaks hurt mid-major teams in a big way. In 2024, a smaller school who had a great season, just not NCAA Tournament great, was kicked to the curb in favor of less impressive Power Six teams.
In 2025, the NIT will have representation from at least 14 conferences, including the two auto-bids for the ACC and SEC, then an auto-bid for each of the top teams not selected for the NCAA Tournament from the top 12 conferences. There are 16 other at-large bids up for grabs, which could go to mid-major teams, although the committee may prefer remaining Power Six teams without a home.
The NIT should be a place for smaller schools to have some postseason shine. While the new exempt bid process helps ensure that mid-majors are represented at the very least, hopefully, the committee tabs some lesser-known schools that impressed during the year with at-large bids.
The 2025 NIT bracket will be announced on March 16 with first-round games starting at campus sites in the following days. The NIT semifinals and championship will take place at the historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis in early April.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Explaining the New NIT Rules & How to Qualify in 2025.
