Over the last two weeks, the NCAA announced dates and locations for the 2025 and 2026 NIT Final Fours. 2025’s will continue the traditional Tuesday/Thursday schedule and will take place at Hinkle Fieldhouse. 2026’s will also be in Indianapolis, but it will move to a Thursday/Sunday schedule to better integrate with the also–in–Indianapolis NCAA Tournament.
It’s good news for the NIT, a basketball tournament that for some reason has its share of haters. In March, amid unprecedented opt-outs, some speculated that the NIT might not be long for this world. Covid taught us there are no guarantees with such things, but for the time being, the NIT is on the calendar.
The good news aspect of this, however, goes beyond the fact the NIT has booked a gym. It is good news which gym was booked. Hinkle Fieldhouse and Indianapolis* proved themselves excellent hosts in 2024. Advantages:
- Partner: In Butler, an American Dream of an athletic department, the NIT has a stable, competent partner, saving the tournament’s administrators from working with a rotating cast of unknowns over the next two years.
- Court: The history and magic of Hinkle give the games an ambience different from but parallel to the environment Madison Square Garden always gave.
- Location (part one): It’s unlikely the 2024 Indiana State phenomenon will ever repeat itself—a large local school climbing to its second-highest historic height was borderline miraculous for the NIT—but Indianapolis is well-positioned for local fanbases. I believe the number is 15 power conference schools which exist within 300 miles of the Circle City, though I might be missing some. That number doesn’t include Dayton, Loyola, Saint Louis, Indiana State, Bradley, or the near-entirety of the MAC. Indianapolis sits in fertile college basketball territory.
- Location (part two): I’m not sure another metro area of its size has as high a proportion of college basketball fans as Indianapolis. There’s some truth to the “In 49 states…” line. Neutral fans showing up is a stronger possibility in Indianapolis than it was in Las Vegas.
This isn’t to say that the 2025 NIT Final Four will sell out all its games like 2024’s did. Indiana State’s run was a special circumstance. Selling out in 2025 will almost definitely take more work on the part of the NIT and its supporters (yes, I’m referencing my colleague NIT Stu here). But, it’s possible, and having seen what an atmosphere the NIT Championship can still be, there is reason to be bullish on the tournament’s future whether the medium term holds more Hinkle Fieldhouse or more integration with the NCAA Tournament’s schedule.
There is, though, that one lingering question:
Will any Big East, Big Ten, or Big 12 schools play in the 2025 NIT?
The College Basketball Crown, Fox Sports’s impending throwback to the Vegas 16, was laughed off the proverbial stage at the time it was announced. As Stu wrote at the time, “This was the best they could come up with?” Whether it’s a good or a bad idea in concept, the practical details are a disaster, with teams asked to wait two weeks before playing and fans asked to travel to Las Vegas at the beginning of April. The one thing the tournament has going for it, though, is Fox Sports’s partnerships with the Big East, Big Ten, and Big 12.
We’re unclear on whether the Big East, Big Ten, and Big 12 have committed their schools to playing in the College Basketball Crown over playing in the NIT. We’re similarly unclear on whether this commitment would mean anything if the conferences made it. Is the Big East really going to go to war with St. John’s if Rick Pitino says he wants to focus on the transfer portal? Would Fox Sports sue over something so trivial? Our guess is that the issue boils down to whether any College Basketball Crown-relevant language exists in the schools’ grants of rights, and if it doesn’t, whether schools signed any College Basketball Crown-specific contracts. We don’t know the answer to that.
What we do know is that Butler, a Big East school, is committed to hosting the 2025 NIT Final Four. This doesn’t mean Butler is hoping to play in it—they’d rather make the NCAA Tournament—but it’s an interesting wrinkle, and I don’t know what to make of it. Ultimately, the best I can offer is that I don’t think it’s anywhere close to certain that Big East, Big Ten, and Big 12 schools will choose the College Basketball Crown over the NIT. I might be wrong, but I haven’t seen anything credibly implying that is certain, let alone confirming that.
Either way, the 2025 and 2026 announcements are great news for the NIT. 2025’s will be played in a good location. 2026’s will sit closer to college basketball’s main street than any NIT in recent memory. We’ve still heard nothing regarding concrete commitments from schools to play in the College Basketball Crown in the event they miss the NCAA Tournament, and given that tournament’s format, the over/under for years it is played should currently be set at 0.5. I wouldn’t say the NIT’s in a great spot or anything, but for the first time in decades if not ever, its trajectory is upward. For those of us who love it, that’s a happy thing.
*One note: The site of the 2026 championship game remains to be determined. The semifinals will be at Hinkle, but the championship could be somewhere else. This isn’t a big deal, and my hunch is that the decision will have at least something to do with TV windows and the Division II and Division III championship games.
