2025 NIT Final Four Preview, Part II: The Schools

Note: This is Part II of our seven-part NIT Final Four preview. Part I is linked below. Parts III, V, and VII will be published at www.thebarkingcrow.com over the days leading up to Tuesday. Parts IV and VI will be released on Monday and Tuesday as episodes of our podcast, Free Hoops.

• Part I: The Programs
• Part II: The Schools
• Part III: The Coaches
• Part IV: Free Hoops! (expert commentary)
• Part V: The Players
• Part VI: Free Hoops! (head coach interviews)
• Part VII: Final Thoughts Before It All Goes Down

**

In Part I of our seven-part NIT Final Four preview, we talked about the basketball programs appearing in this year’s NIT Final Four. In Part II, we’re talking about the schools they represent. Enrollment and endowment data comes from Wikipedia unless otherwise stated.

Rotating the order:

Chattanooga: The Other University of Tennessee

If you spend enough time around people from Tennessee, you’ll hear them throw “UTC” and “UTK” around. I’m sure this upsets certain UTK people, because a lot of things upset certain UTK people, but it’s practical: Knoxville and Chattanooga aren’t that far apart, and both “Tennessee” and “Chattanooga” are long words.

• Where it is: Chattanooga, Tennessee, a 180,000-person city just north of the Tennessee/Georgia border. Draw a line between Birmingham and Knoxville, then another between Nashville and Atlanta. X marks the spot.
• What it is: Basically, a scaled-down version of UTK. Smaller, a little cheaper, a little easier to get into. Not as big of a brand as UTK, but does good work for the state’s middle class.
• Enrollment: 11,775 (10,202 undergrad)
• Endowment: $147.1 million (as of 2020)
• The Arena: McKenzie Arena, also known as The Roundhouse (partly because of Chattanooga’s railroad history, partly because it’s round), sits in the northwest corner of campus, close to downtown. It opened in the 80’s and seats about 11,000.
• How they became the Mocs: The Moccasins until 1996, UTC’s always used its name in the broadest definition possible. When they were still the Moccasins, that sometimes meant water moccasin, sometimes meant a moccasin shoe, and sometimes meant a caricature of a Cherokee man. Now that they’re the Mocs, the imagery also includes a northern mockingbird, the state bird of Tennessee. That bird—Scrappy, named for an old UTC football coach—drives a train.

UC Irvine: A Very Good School

Make what you will of those U.S. News and World Report Rankings, which basically rank academic heft, but UC Irvine is tied for tenth among public universities, tied with Georgia Tech among others. Specifically a big STEM school, UC Irvine doesn’t have a reputation for being a ton of fun or for having much of an identity, but if somebody went there they’re probably smart.

• Where it is: Irvine, a 300,000-person Orange County city a little bit off the coast. Irvine is master-planned, which some people really like and some really dislike.
• What it is: Picture what you picture when you think of great science schools. That’s UC Irvine.
• Enrollment: 37,297 (30,204 undergrad)
• Endowment: $795.89 million (as of 2023)
• The Arena: Bren Events Center, also known as the Bren, is another on-campus arena. Because Irvine is master-planned (unlike Chattanooga, which was wedged between bends in the Tennessee River by an industrious group of Cherokees), the Bren sits next to UCI’s baseball field and track. It’s a short walk from a theater, a Chick-Fil-A, and a park that’s a perfect circle. It opened in the 80’s and seats about 5,000.
• How they became the Anteaters: UC Irvine opened in the 60’s. Some water polo players liked the idea of being the Anteaters (there was a popular comic strip back then named “B.C.” in which anteaters said Zot), and they successfully campaigned to make it happen.

North Texas: Music. Ever Heard of It?

North Texas is not the only school in the country known for its music. But it might be the FBS school best-known for it? Maybe I’m missing something.

UNT isn’t a whole-hog arts school, but it does have a major arts presence. Especially music. This hasn’t exactly aligned with Grant McCasland and Ross Hodge’s basketball style, but Hodge is rumored to have some musical theatre in his past, and we’ll see what Daniyal Robinson thinks of tunes when he takes over.

• Where it is: Denton, the last suburb on I-35 as you go north from Dallas and Fort Worth. At least until Sanger blows up. Denton’s population’s almost as big as Chattanooga’s. 160,000. We have a lot of people in Texas.
• What it is: It’s a pretty big school, and Denton’s a great college town—partly for having fun but also in terms of being a nice place to live when you’re around 20 years old. The school gets supported by the state at the same level as Texas Tech, Houston, and Texas State, all of which are independent from the UT and A&M systems and flagships or de facto flagships of their own.
• Enrollment: 46,940 (33,672 undergrad)
• Endowment: $1.0 billion (as of 2025)
• The Arena: The UNT Coliseum, better-known as the Super Pit, looks a little like a mortarboard from a distance. It’s on the campus side of campus, as opposed to the football stadium size of campus across I-35E. Opened in the 70’s to succeed the Snake Pit, it seats about 10,000.
• How they became the Mean Green: Originally the Eagles, UNT became the Mean Green in the 60’s, either as a reference to their green color or because Joe Greene (of “Thanks, Mean Joe!” fame) led a fierce front seven at defensive tackle.

Loyola Chicago: A Certain Kind of Chicago School

Just like how UCLA and Cal State–Northridge are both Los Angeles schools in very different ways, there are different ways to be a Chicago school. Loyola sits further from the heart of the city than DePaul, but closer than Northwestern. Its primary campus is small and cohesive and where most of the undergraduate stuff happens. It’s a big deal in Chicago’s grad school scene. It’s a good undergrad school, but you hear more about its grad programs, or at least I did growing up in Illinois.

Loyola’s a Jesuit school—the only private school in the mix here—and my impression, having visited a couple times, was that it was decently Catholic. Not as Catholic as Notre Dame but more Catholic than most if not all Big East schools.

• Where it is: Rogers Park and Edgewater, three or four miles north of Wrigley Field on the shores of Lake Michigan. Rogers Park is the northernmost neighborhood in Chicago. Edgewater sits below it. Then you get down into Uptown, and then Lakeview (where Wrigleyville is), then Lincoln Park (where DePaul is), and then informal Old Town and River North before you get to the Loop.
• What it is: A Chicago city school, but in a comfortable and careful way. Students can get into the thick of the city but they can also just dip their toes. Again, seems to take more pride in its grad programs than its undergrad stuff academically. But the undergrad culture is good and it’s not a bad school.
• Enrollment: 17,397 (12,487 undergrad)
• Endowment: $1.26 billion (as of 2024)
• The Arena: Joseph J. Gentile Arena, formerly the Gentile Center, opened in the 90’s and got a major renovation in the early 2010’s. It’s another on-campus arena. Four for four! It seats about 4,500.
• How they became the Ramblers: Back when Loyola had football, its team played a lot of road games one year. The wolf mascot is a nod to St. Ignatius of Loyola’s coat of arms. The old mascot—Bo Rambler—was a hobo. Not kidding. Gentrification must have gotten him.

Summing It Up

Two big schools. Two medium schools. One known for academics, one known for music, one for accessibility, and one for its location. All mid-majors, but very different flavors. Great nicknames. Messed up that Loyola didn’t keep Bo around, though. Unless he preferred life on the road? Wait, he could be on the train Scrappy’s driving! Scrappy the Moc, I mean. North Texas’s mascot is also named Scrappy. He’s an eagle. And since you’re wondering, UC Irvine’s is Peter. Peter the Anteater. Good work, everybody.

**