The Barking Crow

NIT Bracketology

The bracket below is our best current prediction of the final NIT bracket. It is predictive of where things will end up. It is not a reflection of where things currently stand. (Update: With selection happening today, it is now a reflection of where things stand.)

The bracket below is also objective. We are not making choices based on our opinions of various teams. Our college basketball model simulates the remainder of the season 10,000 times, including the selection process and postseason tournaments. It gives us the likeliest upper cut line (accounting for bid thieves), the likeliest lower cut lines (accounting for reverse bid thieves), and each team’s median position on each committee’s seed list. With that information, we build the bracket based on our best understanding of the bracketing principles. Here is how the model works, in full detail.

If you notice any irregularities or have questions of any sort, please contact me through the information available on our about page or on twitter: @joestunardi.

  • If you want NCAA Tournament Bracketology, we have that too.
  • If you want NIT Bubble Watch, we also have that.
  • If you want our model’s probabilities concerning each team’s tournament chances, we have those as well.
  • Regions are ordered as follows: first overall seed; fourth overall seed; second overall seed; third overall seed.
  • Asterisks denote automatic bid recipients.
  • For First Four Out and other bracket context, check out all our NIT posts.

Last Updated: Sunday 3/17 – post-NCAA Tournament Selection Show, post St. John’s & Pitt opt-outs

Oklahoma Region

1. Oklahoma*
SMU
4. Washington*
San Francisco
3. Princeton
Syracuse
2. Villanova*
VCU

Wake Forest Region

1. Wake Forest*
Appalachian State
4. Georgia*
UCF
3. Iowa*
Bradley
2. Cincinnati*
Loyola (IL)

Seton Hall Region

1. Seton Hall
Florida State
4. LSU*
South Florida
3. Utah*
UNLV
2. Providence*
Boston College

Indiana State Region

1. Indiana State
Minnesota
4. Kansas State
UC Irvine
3. Virginia Tech*
Richmond
2. Ohio State*
Butler

836 thoughts on “NIT Bracketology”

  1. Thanks for putting in this work! Any chance you can share your opinion on UMass? I was hoping they would slide above say a Duquesne that you have in.

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    1. We love to do it! UMass has a strong case, but our model is low on them because of their weak SOR. That Harvard loss is hurting them, and their performance on the road hasn’t been as good as some others. If they beat VCU in the quarterfinals, I’d think our model would have them a lot closer to the cut line. It views that as 50/50 likely right now.

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      1. Thanks so much for the thorough response! Will keep watch as we get through this week. I know it’s unlikely but if they grabbed VCU and knocked off Richmond (teams they have already beaten) I’m wondering how much of a jump they can make on some teams

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        1. I have to think that would put them right there on the bubble if not in, but it’ll depend what teams around them do. They definitely have a chance, and our model does have a margin of error—we don’t expect our final bracketology to be 100% correct. Good luck!

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  2. Love your page. Can you explain Utah? They have one home 4-point win over BYU. Otherwise they’ve done nothing. Below .500 in what we’re told is a below-average Pac 12. They don’t have a road win in conference. They lost to last-place Oregon State this weekend. How they’ve been on the NCAA bubble baffles me. If I read this right, Oregon who finished 3 games ahead of them in conference is an 8 seed while they’re a 2? Something escapes the eye test here.

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    1. Thanks! First off, the unseeded teams are truly unseeded, meaning everyone who’d be a 5, 6, 7, or 8-seed is lumped in together. Those matchups are determined to minimize the total number of flights needed during the tournament (while avoiding a few different levels of regular season rematches). If we took out automatic bids and seeded 1–8, Oregon would have been a 5-seed in yesterday’s bracket.

      Utah’s win at Saint Mary’s didn’t look impressive at the time, but it’s a great one now that SMC’s heated up. The win over Wake Forest plays well for them too, because Wake Forest is a “good” team (strong kenpom, NET, other metrics like those that are more predictive of how a team will play) despite not being a very accomplished team. Besides Utah’s loss to ASU in Salt Lake City, all their bad losses have come on the road, which helps, and they scheduled a lot of respectable low-majors (EWU, UCR, Hawaii, UVU) instead of teams like Cal Poly, which improves their overall body of work.

      Overall, though, a lot of it is that Utah grades out as better than Oregon in full-strength projections, things like kenpom that track closely with Vegas spreads. In our backtesting over the last two years, we found that the NIT committee’s selections and seedings correlate pretty strongly with those. I don’t love that approach, personally, but it’s what they’ve done the last two years, so it’s what our model expects.

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      1. Interesting stuff. Especially about the spreads. I will say the Ducks have laid eggs against the spread even in their wins, and they have about as many good wins as Walter Mondale. Your How the Model Works page is an education, but it gave me flashbacks to college classes where I struggled. Not enough pictures to hold my limited attention span. 🙂 Keep up the good work!

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        1. Thank you! Haha we need to communicate that page a lot better next year. Graphics would be helpful! We appreciate your comments.

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          1. Hey, just checking back — I don’t see either the Ducks or Dawgs in the NIT! What’s up with that?!? Hee-hee! >:D

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            1. Haha dang Dana Altman, winning the Pac-12 Tournament again! We were sad to see Washington opt out, but tough with the portal open after a coach gets fired. Good to hear from you!

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  3. Looks pretty good, maybe the most accurate prediction you’ve ever made for a field and I’ve been following your site for quite a while. Maybe Villanova instead of Utah or Seton Hall? Not sure the Wildcats are making the NCAA Tournament. Keep up the good work, 11 days until the field is announced.

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    1. I’m a Tarheel fan but always keep up with the in-state ACC teams…what are the chances of NC State making the NIT this season? They have really dropped off the last few games.

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    1. Very fair question. UNLV is right on our projected bubble (they were our third team out yesterday), but what happened was that teams around them won unexpectedly. Loyola wasn’t expected to beat Dayton, UCF wasn’t previously expected to stay ahead of Kansas State in NET (keeping the Big 12’s second automatic bid and leaving K-State to take an at-large), and UC Irvine wasn’t expected to improve their NET rating as much as they have, something that pushed UNLV past our cut line (82nd) in our model and slid JMU into our projected field.

      Sorry it’s so convoluted. Lot of complications with NIT bracketology. For what it’s worth, UNLV’s NIT probability hasn’t changed all that much. It’s still about 40%: https://thebarkingcrow.com/college-basketball-probabilities/

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      1. Thank you. I appreciate the explanation. They have San Diego St. tonight at home and UNR on the road Saturday. Will they need to win both to get back into the field?

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        1. Of course! Thanks for the comments. To be comfortably in the NIT field heading into the MWC Tournament, 2–0 might be necessary, but even going 1–1 across those two should help UNLV a lot. It’ll depend what others do, but I’d guess 1–1 gets them up across the cut line and into our bracket.

          They’re about 45% likely to lose both and 45% likely to go 1–1, so while the median expectation is that they go 1–1, the fact they make it in 40% of our simulations but only go 2–0 in 10% of simulations makes me think 1–1 would boost their odds enough to get past 50%.

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    1. About 50/50, from what we can tell right now. They’re our model’s first team out of today’s field.

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            1. The last two years, the NIT committee’s been very consistent in terms of what variables have led to high/low seeds. Its decisions have correlated more with NET and kenpom than with the criteria the NCAA Tournament committee uses. Those aren’t the only important variables, but VT being >25 spots better in both those rating systems is why they’re ahead of Syracuse in our projection right now.

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  6. Hey Joe!
    With regards to the new format… for instance in the ACC is it the top two highest net ranking teams left out of the big dance that get the NIT auto bids? I’m a Noles fan and I’m pulling for a late surge to sneak in the NIT I think this year is gonna be awesome with the new format although I do feel for the smaller schools.

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    1. Yes! You’ve got it right. Once the NCAA Tournament field is set, the NIT committee will look at the remaining teams’ NET rankings and give automatic bids to the top two in each of the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, Big East, Pac-12, and SEC, for a total of 12 automatic bids. Then, they’ll select the 20 at-large teams. 1-seeds go to the NCAA Tournament committee’s official First Four Out. All automatic bid recipients will get the chance to host in the first round.

      With FSU: For what it’s worth, we have them a little likelier than not to make the NIT after last night’s win. They looked good! (https://thebarkingcrow.com/college-basketball-probabilities/)

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  7. I don’t get the NET rankings. How is a team 18-10 and 9-8 in conference in a power 5 and like a 5-7 seed in the Non important tournament. Makes no sense.

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    1. We approach NCAAT automatic bids differently than Joe Lunardi does. We go with the current conference tournament favorite rather than the current regular season leader. Our bracketology is designed to be a projection of where things will end rather than a reflection of where they currently stand. All a matter of preference, of course. But that’s what’s happening.

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      1. Well they should be favored in all of there remaining games and Loyola Chicago would lose to Dayton so that would mean you would need Richmond to lose two games to fall out of the bracket. That logic doesn’t make sense

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        1. The NCAA Tournament automatic bid doesn’t go to the regular season conference champion. It goes to the conference tournament champion. Dayton is likelier to win the A-10 Tournament than Richmond is.

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          1. Dayton is far from a lock to win the A-10. There not very deep and have struggled at times to score. There’s prob 7-8 teams that could cut down the nets in Brooklyn but if they played Dayton it would be in the title game

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    1. It doesn’t look great, but they aren’t out of it yet! Still have about a 1-in-5 chance of making the field. A 2–2 finish would leave them interesting heading into the Big Ten Tournament. Thanks for the support!

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  10. What happens to the teams who win their conference titles in the one bid leagues if they do not win their conference title? In the past, they were invited into the NIT.

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    1. The NCAA changed the rules on that this year. For the first time since 2005, those teams won’t be invited to the NIT.

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        1. Yes! Very likely to make it in that scenario. They’re in good shape for it right now, we just have them in the NCAAT as a heavy conference tournament favorite.

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  11. Does UCF have a chance? Got to be a bubble team at least with wins over Kansas; Oklahoma; TT; and Texas, right?

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    1. They have a great chance. One of our first teams out right now, and they also have a shot at taking one of the Big 12’s automatic bids (for power conferences, those go to the top two non-NCAAT teams by NET). Overall, our model has them more likely than not to make it (https://thebarkingcrow.com/college-basketball-probabilities/), but they get boxed out of our bracketology because their median final seed isn’t as high as those of the other bubble teams.

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        1. No, not that. When we refer to the Big 12’s automatic bids, we’re referring to the automatic bids to the NIT. After the NCAA Tournament field is announced, the top two teams in each power six conference in the NET rankings will receive an automatic bid to the NIT. UCF has a good chance at getting one of those NIT automatic bids. They also have a decent chance at getting an at-large bid to the NIT, in the event they don’t get the automatic bid. The NCAA Tournament is very unlikely for them.

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    1. We’ll write a post on today’s update in a bit (with First Four Out and all that), but Yale moved into the projected field this morning, and Cornell and South Florida are both close. All three are NIT bubble teams.

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        1. Not quite—IU’s still projecting to land on the outside looking in. Close enough that it wouldn’t be shocking if our model ended up wrong, but not quite in the projected field just yet.

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          1. IU has 3 Quad 1 wins and no Quad 4 losses. Swept Maryland and Ohio State. Feeling good about their chances despite the weak 101 NET at moment.

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            1. Hi Joe – IU got the sweep of Minnesota last night so they’re now 7-0 against the 4 Big Ten teams currently projected in the field.

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              1. I just looked at the updated probabilities. Looks like IU replaces Minnesota now. Still could be close but i believe they are in the projected field. A win against Mich ST would make me a lot more comfortable.

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                1. About to run the bracketology for today, but yes, they’re back above 50%! For what it’s worth: The committee doesn’t really look at a team’s record against teams in the field, as far as we can tell. That’s a good stat, though. Funny that they’ve lost to the best and worst Big Ten teams but beaten their fellow medium ones.

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  13. Joe, I really enjoy reading your thoughts. I think there may be an oversight. Indiana State and Drake aren’t both going to the NIT are they?

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      1. No worries! It’s a mess. We’ll try to make it clearer in our next update (trying to roll the full model out on Friday but still have a ways to go).

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          1. We still don’t know whether the NIT committee will take teams below .500 overall as at-large teams (they’re eligible for automatic bids, but the at-large thing hasn’t been spelled out explicitly). So, Penn State might need to go 3–1 here down the stretch, unless they’re going to make a ton of noise in the Big Ten Tournament.

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            1. I agree with that I think the NIT should take teams below 500 but I think they defnitely should be able to be in the bracket

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              1. Probably not. Our model looks at each team’s median final record, not its current record. Penn State should be favored in that game, so even if they win it, they’ll still be expected to finish the regular season 15–16, which would leave them needing two Big Ten Tournament wins.

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                  1. Yes! That would move the needle. They’d be projected to finish .500 or better, and while I doubt they’d be in our bracketology right away, they’d at least be in the mix.

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  15. I always enjoy reading your projections. As a fan of the Missouri Valley, you have both Indiana State and Drake in the NIT. Are you predicting Bradley or someone else to make the NCAA Tournament or was this just a minor oversight? Both teams have identical records overall and in conference.

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    1. Off the top of my head, I would guess so, but it’ll depend what teams around them do. We’re planning to run the next update on Friday, so check back then!

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    1. Our bracketology is predictive (it looks at where teams will end up, not where they are), which is what makes it an outlier on the Huskers right now. Basically, they have all these low-upside/high-downside games coming up, and those are dangerous. Personally, I’d estimate that if they go 4–2 and win all the home games, they’ll be perfectly fine, but it does depend somewhat on the teams around them as well.

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  19. Does Penn State have a chance to make the NIT tournament this year? They have won three in a row to put them right back in the middle of the Big Ten. What would their final record need to be to make the NIT?

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    1. Penn State definitely has a chance. They’re within five or ten teams of our projected field as things stand. There’s no record at which they’d be guaranteed an NIT bid, and margin of victory/defeat matters a lot (more for the NIT the last two years than the NCAAT), but I’d be aiming for 17–15 if I was wanting them in the field.

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    1. The NIT committee’s hewed closer to kenpom and NET the last two years, and Syracuse is in rough shape in both of those. Definitely still close, and might not need to upset teams, but probably need to play a little better. For what it’s worth, John Templon (https://www.nitbracketology.com/) still has them in.

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      1. I’ve commented more about my SU team to you in the last few years than I wish I’d have to! Haha. Thanks for taking the time to answer, explain, and keep this going. I appreciate it for one, and have sent your site to multiple friends over the past couple years when we’ve been on the decline. Cheers.

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        1. Thanks so much! Always happy to do it, and appreciate you coming back (although I understand you’d rather be looking at a different tournament).

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          1. Be interesting to see how this week treated the Orange on your Friday update. Loss to Clemson, game tied back up around 3 minutes left but still a loss. Then a win against a UNC. Still in the mid 80s NET wise, but boy oh boy does the sweep of Pitt look better and better.

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    2. Can they get to 20 wins? That’s what is needed. 3-2 finish, one win in the ACCT, spells NIT. Anything less with a NET ranking near 90, probably not.

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