It’s the most anticipated sporting development of the weekend:
Our NIT Bracketology is updated again. Some highlights:
- We got Nebraska back! This is unexpected, but I guess they do have a lot of opportunities for bad losses coming up. The rest of their regular season includes two games against teams projected to make the NIT and five games against teams projected to miss it on the low end. Ohio State is their best remaining opponent. You can do it, Huskers!
- The ACC saw a lot of movement out of the NIT window, dropping from seven bids to four. SMU is still there to boost the representation, but things are trending in the wrong direction for America’s most North Carolina-centric conference.
- The Big East also lost a team, so the Big Ten now leads the way with five bids. Depending how you do the math, you could argue that’s half the conference. What a (hypothetical) showing.
- While the Thad Matta Bowl highlights the first round, we also have…well, the schools within the state of Virginia have been playing each other for a while now in these brackets. The Thad Matta Bowl’s the hot new thing.
- Climbing in: Minnesota, Samford, St. Bonaventure.
- Falling in: Nebraska, Mississippi.
- Rising out: Xavier, Texas A&M. (Farewell, 2022 Championship.)
- Falling out: NC State, Syracuse, Florida State.
- Georgia would not be in the field if the new automatic bids weren’t in place. Kansas State, UCF, and Washington wouldn’t have home games. Drake, Princeton, Seton Hall, and Maryland would all be playing at home. The A-10 would be a zero-bid league in the old universe. Ditto the WCC. There would be a lot more low-majors in here, though.
Last Four In, First Four Out (on the high side):
- In, from least safe to safest: Virginia, Villanova, Butler, Nebraska
- Out, from closest to furthest: Texas A&M, Utah State, Northwestern, St. John’s
Last Four In, First Four Out (on the low side):
- In, from least safe to safest: Richmond, St. Bonaventure, Louisiana Tech, Samford (bonus: Minnesota, Memphis)
- Out, from closest to furthest: NC State, Florida State, North Texas, Syracuse
In the mix (more teams on the low end):
- VCU, Yale, LSU, Akron, Appalachian State, Boston College, Indiana, Cornell (bonus: Penn State, Rutgers, and UCLA, although they’re all expected to finish below .500, which could still be a problem during at-large bid consideration)
