INDIANAPOLIS — California, Illinois State, Iowa and Syracuse highlight the 32-team National Invitation Tournament field released Sunday. The field features 21 teams with at least 20 wins, 10 automatic qualifiers and representation from 20 of the 32 Division I conferences.
Game Schedule | Printable 2017 NIT bracket
First-round play is scheduled for Tuesday, March 14 and Wednesday, March 15, with the second round running March 16-20. Quarterfinals will be held on March 21 and 22, and four teams will advance to New York City for the semifinals on Tuesday, March 28. The NIT will conclude with the championship game on Thursday, March 30. The semifinal and championship games will be played at New York’s historic Madison Square Garden for the 80th year.
First-round action, on campus sites, features No. 1 seeds California, Illinois State, Iowa and Syracuse hosting CSU Bakersfield, UC Irvine, South Dakota and UNCG respectively.
Other first-round games include Belmont at Georgia, Akron at Houston, Valparaiso at Illinois, Oakland at Clemson, Indiana at Georgia Tech, UT Arlington at BYU, Boise State at Utah, Richmond at Alabama, Ole Miss at Monmouth, College of Charleston at Colorado State, Colorado at UCF, and Fresno State at TCU.
Clemson is making its 16th appearance in the National Invitation Tournament, the most of any school in the 2017 field. A total of nine teams in the 2017 field appeared in the NIT in 2016.
“This is always a very challenging process and, while we are pleased with the makeup of the field, we know there were many teams worthy of being in this tournament,” said Reggie Minton, chair of the NIT Selection Committee. “One thing we noticed when putting this field together is the number of quality wins of these teams had during the season.”
“We are excited about the tournament and we think it will be as competitive a field as we’ve ever had. We look forward to tipping things off on Tuesday.”
NIT games are being televised by ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3. Additional NIT information can be found on www.NCAA.com/NIT.
