INDIANAPOLIS – Baylor, Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s (California) and Southern California highlight the 32-team National Invitation Tournament field released today. The field features 22 teams with at least 20 wins, 12 automatic qualifiers and representation from 21 of the 32 Division I conferences.
First round play is scheduled for Tuesday, March 13 and Wednesday, March 14, with the second round running March 16-19. Quarterfinals will be held on March 20 and 21 and four teams will advance to New York City for the semifinals on Tuesday, March 27. The NIT will conclude with the Championship game on Thursday, March 29. The semifinal and championship games will be played at New York’s historic Madison Square Garden for the 81st year.
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First round action, on campus sites, features number one seeds Baylor, Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s and Southern California hosting Wagner, Hampton, Southeastern Louisiana and UNC Asheville, respectively.
Other first round games include Temple at Penn State, Rider at Oregon, Harvard at Marquette, Nebraska at Mississippi State, Vermont at Middle Tennessee, Northern Kentucky at Louisville, Boston College at Western Kentucky, BYU at Stanford, FGCU at Oklahoma State, Boise State at Washington, Louisiana at LSU, UC Davis at Utah.
Temple is making its 19th appearance in the National Invitation Tournament, the most of any school in the 2018 field. Only three of the teams in the 2018 field appeared in the NIT in 2017.
“Like every year, this was an extremely challenging process but we are extremely excited about the field we were able to put together,” said Reggie Minton, chair of the NIT Selection Committee. “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.
