Our NIT Bracketology has been updated, and there’s only one change:
Welcome, Youngstown State.
The Penguins are into the NIT. They’ve earned the Horizon League yet another automatic bid, that streak now stretching back even further into the ethers of time (no, I don’t know how time works, thank you very much, and if you really think about it neither do you). It is a wonderful day in the Rust Belt, and I think that means it’s a wonderful day everywhere. God bless the Penguins. Every tuxedoed one of them.
Here’s what’s going on:
Moving In: Youngstown State*
Guess we covered this already.
Moving Out: Texas A&M Corpus Christi*
The Islanders are just about as likely to win the Southland Conference Tournament as they were yesterday, but through some bracketology formalities (the likeliest number of NIT automatic bids is 12, AMCC is the 13th-likeliest NIT automatic bid), they get pushed out. Will we see them soon? That’s up to them. Them, and fate.
First Four Out: Santa Clara, Cincinnati, UCF, Nebraska
Same four here, and in the same order. Santa Clara could have a rooting interest in tonight’s WCC Championship, but they didn’t beat Gonzaga or Saint Mary’s, which is kind of the problem in the first place.
Next Four Out: Utah, Wake Forest, UNLV, Marshall
No movement here.
Conference Complications: College of Charleston, Sam Houston State, Kent State, Dayton (kind of)
Charleston and SHSU are probably in as at-large bids with conference tournament losses. Kent State? It’s less sure. Dayton? Probably not, but close enough to talk about ‘em, especially with the A-10 on the brain.
Automatic Dreams: Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Yale, Iona, Vermont, Oral Roberts, Colgate
These are six of the other seven possible automatic bids, the last one being FAU, who’s more or less operating as a bubble team right now. We’ve listed these six from likeliest to make the NIT (AMCC, at 50%), to least likely (Colgate, at 14%).
Losers: Oklahoma, Ohio State
Big deal made in the Rutgers community this morning about how the NCAA Tournament committee does, in fact, know that the Big Ten said officials missed the call they missed when Rutgers lost to Ohio State at the buzzer early in the year. Less talked about? Whether that further twists the knife in Ohio State or if it just doesn’t matter.
Oklahoma, barring an Invisible .500 Rule™ change, needs to get to .500 to get in.
**
NIT Bubble Watch and a preview of this Tuesday coming next. Check the home page in minutes or hours.
