The NIT bracket is roughly twelve hours away. Our NIT Bracketology, NCAA Tournament Seed List, and College Basketball Probabilities are updated heading into today.
As we said yesterday, we’re skeptical of some of our model’s probabilities. It’s an imperfect model. At this point, I’d say the NIT Bracketology page gives you a better idea of who’ll make the NIT than the College Basketball Probabilities page does.
The Rest of Today
We’ll post another bracket after today’s games are done, before the NCAA Tournament Selection Show. In addition to knowing the results of Yale/Cornell, UAB/Memphis, and VCU/George Mason, that bracket will include this morning’s updated NET, KPI, SOR, WAB, Torvik, and BPI ratings. Our overnight simulations only update kenpom. They estimate the changes to the rest of them.
Then, after the NCAA Tournament Selection Show, we’ll post our final NIT Bracketology of the year. If there are opt-outs, we probably won’t account for those in that bracket. We’d rather get you an updated bracket quickly (since we’ll know who’s in the NCAA Tournament and we’ll know some of the 1-seeds) than get you a bracket that accounts for every opt-out. Last year, not every opt-out even formally announced they were opting out.
Play-Ins
Our model has VCU out of the NCAA Tournament field if they lose. That makes the VCU vs. George Mason game an NCAAT/NIT play-in, at least in our eyes.
If Yale loses to Cornell, Yale makes the NIT as an automatic bid.
If UAB beats Memphis, our model’s belief is that Indiana will be pushed into the Crown, pushing Nebraska out of the Crown automatic bid and allowing the Huskers to choose the NIT.
TCU, UCF, and the Crown
The Crown is reportedly using an average of NET and KPI to award its automatic bids. It’s awarding two to each of the Big 12, Big East, and Big Ten. One of those automatic bids will go to Cincinnati. Assuming West Virginia makes the NCAA Tournament, the other will go to either UCF or TCU. Unfortunately, we don’t know which. They’re tied in that average. UCF has the better NET, and UCF was ahead in the NET/KPI average the last few days, but TCU’s in an unfortunate spot there. The simplest compromise would be for the Crown to take UCF as that automatic bid, since UCF’s presumably been preparing for the Crown while we’d guess TCU’s been preparing for the NIT.
The Big Ten Exempt Bid
There’s been speculation about USC opting out, and while there’s speculation about everybody opting out (baseless speculation, more often than not), if Nebraska doesn’t get the Big Ten’s NIT exempt bid and USC doesn’t take it, Penn State’s in line to receive it ahead of Rutgers. (Update: Rutgers has announced they will not play in the NIT or the Crown.)
The SEC and the Non-Exempt Home Game
The SEC gets three exempt bids—one for being among the twelve best conferences, two for spurning the Crown. It’s only looking like it’ll take two, especially since if Texas misses the NCAA Tournament, there’s a widespread assumption Texas will fire Rodney Terry.
Texas could absolutely end up in the NIT, but if they don’t and there isn’t a surprise third SEC team, there’ll be one home game available for a non-exempt team. It’s possible that could go to San Diego State or Boise State, if both miss the NCAA Tournament. In our model, it comes down to Dayton and Santa Clara. Last night’s simulations gave Dayton the edge. We’ll see what our model thinks now that it knows how NET and the other ratings reacted to yesterday’s action.
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