The ACC and SEC will get two automatic bids to the men’s basketball National Invitation Tournament (NIT), while other conferences will get one, according to the new NIT selection process announced Tuesday.
The change comes as FOX is set to debut its own 16-team rival postseason basketball tournament in partnership with the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East. Previously, the NIT — which is broadcast by ESPN — provided two auto-bids to the Power 6 conferences for the tournament earlier this year.
Under the new selection process, in addition to those four ACC/SEC bids, the top team not selected to the NCAA Tournament from the top 12 conferences will receive an auto-bid to the NIT. That determination will come from an average of the following ranking systems: ESPN Basketball Power Index, Kevin Pauga Index, NCAA Evaluation Tool, Ken Pomeroy Rating, Strength of Record, Torvik Ranking and Wins Above Bubble ranking.
The 16 teams receiving an automatic bid are guaranteed the opportunity to host a first-round game.
In addition to those 16 auto-bids, regular-season conference champions that are not selected to the NCAA Tournament can receive an automatic NIT bid if they have an average ranking of 125 or better across the BPI, KPI, NET, KenPom, SOR, Torvik and WAB rankings. The rest of the 32-team field will be selected as at-large teams by the NIT selection committee, which added former coaches Tubby Smith and Jeff Jones.
The NIT also approved an experimental rule requiring coach challenges for out-of-bounds reviews in the last two minutes, rather than a voluntary official’s decision. The number of challenges available will equal the number of timeouts available on a given team. A lost challenge will cost a timeout. A challenge with no timeouts that does not successfully overturn a call will result in a technical foul.
The semifinals and final of this year’s NIT will take place at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
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