Daytime basketball arrived today, but unfortunately, Arch Madness doesn’t start seriously affecting the NIT until tomorrow. For the time being, we’re still focused on toNITe. To help that effort, our own Joe Stunardi took the trouble of measuring how every team’s NIT chances are impacted by winning and losing every game. You’ve seen our NIT Bracketology. You’ve seen our NIT probabilities. This is the next level.
I understand, and I think Joe understands, that this is fucked up. Spending your mornings calculating conditional NIT probabilities and converting them into a reflection of “NIT leverage” is no way to contribute to society. Get a job, man! Or volunteer at a soup kitchen! How about you leverage that soup into those styrofoam bowls, eh?? Microsoft Word keeps trying to make me change styrofoam to Styrofoam. I will never treat styrofoam as a proper noun. As far as I’m concerned, styrofoam is something we mine from the earth, like gold or like Washington’s teeth after USC stomped their faces off last night.
Still, Joe created this metric—not me, I am not Joe—and I guess we better use it. Here’s what it says about this evening’s games:
| Team 1 | Team 2 | NIT Leverage |
| Queens | Lipscomb | 0.49 |
| Liberty | Middle Tennessee | 0.43 |
| Florida Atlantic | UAB | 0.39 |
| Utah Valley | Abilene Christian | 0.30 |
| Utah Tech | Grand Canyon | 0.24 |
| Cal State Northridge | UC Riverside | 0.20 |
| Michigan State | Iowa | 0.05 |
| UC Irvine | UC Davis | 0.05 |
| New Mexico State | Louisiana Tech | 0.04 |
| Wichita State | Rice | 0.03 |
| Charlotte | North Texas | 0.01 |
| Long Beach State | UC San Diego | 0.01 |
#1 (Game of the NITe): ASUN Semifinal – Queens at Lipscomb
Lipscomb: 25% NIT-likely with a win, 75% with a loss
How to watch: Find the nearest child, obtain their parents’ permission to teach them a life lesson, and tell them what Garrison Mathews did to NC State in 2019. (8:00 PM EST, ESPN+)
They’re back! The Bisons—not to be confused with the North Dakota State Bison, though I don’t know how you’d make that mistake—stole America’s heart in 2019, coming one game short of winning the national championship. Casey Alexander left for Belmont after that game, but after five years in the wilderness, Lennie Acuff has Lipscomb back on the NIT’s doorstep. All they have to do is 1) lose and 2) make sure Queens doesn’t win the ASUN Tournament. If Queens wins, Lipscomb still has to go to the NCAA T*urnament. I assume this is because the NCAA T*urnament doesn’t respect women. (UPDATE: See note below.)
Queens beat Lipscomb the last time these teams played in Nashville, but Lipscomb won the rematch in Charlotte. Rubber match tonight, then, and the biggest game of Jacob Ognacevic’s career. (Shoutout Sheboygan.)
NOTE: We have learned that the ASUN is treating Lipscomb and North Alabama as co-champions, which—long story short—means that if North Alabama wins but Lipscomb loses to Queens, Lipscomb is into the NIT! What a buzz.
#2: Liberty at Middle Tennessee
Liberty: 63% NIT-likely with a win, 68% with a loss
MTSU: 67% NIT-likely with a win, 28% with a loss
How to watch: Alternate between calling Middle Tennessee “Middle Tennessee” and “Middle Tennessee State.” Nobody knows which it is. (7:30 PM EST, CBSSN)
Liberty, MTSU, and Jacksonville State each have five conference losses. Each has a KNIT score good enough to get an automatic bid if they can win the conference title (one will get an exempt bid too, though). Liberty’s 1–1 against Jax State. Jax State’s 1–1 against MTSU. MTSU’s 0–1 against Liberty. That’s what gives this the NIT leverage.
Liberty’s got that exempt bid in its back pocket, but the Blue Raiders need this one. Time to make Colonel Hardy Murfree proud.
#3: Florida Atlantic at UAB
FAU: 21% NIT-likely with a win, 3% with a loss
UAB: 32% NIT-likely with a win, 11% with a loss
How to watch: Dress nice and shave your head and speak in a deep, thoughtful, strong southern voice until someone asks why you’re doing an Andy Kennedy impression, then ask how they know Andy Kennedy and give them a big high five. (7:00 PM EST, ESPN2)
Bubble beatdown at Bartow, bitches. The 2023 postseason’s greatest Cinderella meets FAU.
#4: Utah Valley at Abilene Christian
Utah Valley: 63% NIT-likely with a win, 33% with a loss
How to watch: Spend 45 minutes unsuccessfully googling why Joe Golding hasn’t worked out at UTEP. (8:00 PM EST, ESPN+)
The 2023 postseason’s second-greatest Cinderella is in the mix for more, but if Utah Valley’s going to find us, they’ll need the automatic bid, which means holding off Grand Canyon. Utah Valley’s a game up in the standings. I’m not sure anybody knows what the WAC’s doing for tiebreakers this year. I think they got rid of the seeding formula? There’s only one way to find out, and it’s a dangerous way to go. Just win this, Wolverines. I want more of the Green Man Group.
#5: Utah Tech at Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon: 30% NIT-likely with a win, 6% with a loss
How to watch: Depends how many screens you have. (9:00 PM EST, ESPN+)
Bryce Drew’s guys are in the NIT at-large mix, but they’d be safer chasing down the automatic bid. Wolverines vs. Antelopes in a cold war. It’s WAC-tastic.
#6: Cal State-Northridge at UC Riverside
CSUN: 24% NIT-likely with a win, 5% with a loss
UC Riverside: 1% NIT-likely with a win, 0% with a loss
How to watch: Keep asking your Joe Kelly bobblehead who’s going to win. (10:00 PM EST, ESPN+)
We’ve talked about CSUN recently, ahead of that thriller last week with UCSD. Can the Big West get three NIT bids? Maybe. It would of course be historic, a testament to what 2017 Cal State-Bakersfield showed California public schools could do. Obviously, this is tough for Joe Kelly fans, given our UC Riverside sympathies. Nobody said the NIT would be easy.
#7: Michigan State at Iowa
Iowa: 33% NIT-likely with a win, 38% with a loss
How to watch: Try to figure out if Tom Izzo likes Fran McCaffery. (8:00 PM EST, FS1)
Iowa’s in a shitty place with the College Basketball Crown, but given the dynamics of those automatic bids and our best guesses on what they’ll do to opt-outs, our model thinks the Hawkeyes are best served by losing this game. That’s good for Iowa, because that’s probably what they’ll do.
#8: UC Irvine at UC Davis
UCI: 71% NIT-likely with a win, 76% with a loss
How to watch: Try to remember that UC Davis player’s name from 2018 when they were kind of good. Look it up. Find it. Look up what happened to him. Say, “Rec Specs! Nice!” (9:00 PM EST, ESPN+)
Don’t read too much into UC Irvine’s probabilities. They don’t want to lose to UC Davis. Not tonight, anyway. Again, disgusting that I know this but what our model’s seeing is that if UC Irvine loses to UC Davis, UC Irvine’s probably bad, and UC Irvine’s therefore pretty likely to lose the Big West Tournament. We don’t want UC Irvine to be bad. UC Irvine doesn’t want UC Irvine to be bad. We all just want UC Irvine to make another NIT.
#9: New Mexico State at Louisiana Tech
Louisiana Tech: 4% NIT-likely with a win, 1% with a loss
How to watch: You can pass on this one. You’ve got a lot going on. (7:30 PM EST, ESPN+)
We’ll always accept an invitation to Ruston. I don’t mean this literally. I did eat at the Ruston Chick-Fil-A once, though. Well. I ate outside of it. Long story, but I remember there being a lot of car dealerships around?
#10: Wichita State at Rice
Wichita State: 3% NIT-likely with a win, 0% with a loss
How to watch: Ask aloud why Rice baseball fell off. Don’t go to any effort to find the answer. (8:00 PM EST, ESPN+)
Wichita State’s kind of sad right now, but Paul Mills isn’t having a terrible year for a second-year coach at a mid-major. For a second-year coach at a well-supported school in a basketball-crazy state? I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know what the NIL situation is in Wichita. One of the Koch brothers died, right?
#11: Charlotte at North Texas
North Texas: 70% NIT-likely with a win, 71% with a loss
How to watch: Cackle with delight as Ross Hodge’s defense throttles yet another helpless wing. (9:00 PM EST, ESPN2)
The Mean Green are a serious NIT championship contender again. It’s not 2022 or 2023, but it’s also not 2024. Don’t know what I mean? That’s ok. We can work with you. Keep visiting this website. Your life is about to get a whole lot different.
#12: Long Beach State at UC San Diego
UCSD: 40% NIT-likely with a win, 41% with a loss
How to watch: Ponder the racial demographics of the San Diego metropolitan region. (10:00 PM EST, ESPN+)
UCSD’s probably in the NIT as long as they lose the Big West Tournament, which makes this more tune-up than turn-up. These guys are fun to get to know, though., so go ahead and turn it on. Also, when you see the camera angle? Don’t worry that you accidentally clicked on the wrong game. That’s LionTree Arena, baby.
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