NIT Bubble Talk!

Wow, a post about the NIT Bubble? That's just craaazy!

There are 40 bids for the NIT. With the new rule changes, all conference champions who do not go to the NCAA will automagically go to the NIT. This means zero to 30 (!) of the NIT spots will be filled by conference champions (The Ivy sends its regular season conference champ to the NCAA).

That, along with the fact that you don't need a 50% or better record anymore, makes it a bit hard to predict the field. Will the NIT selection committee go for the big name matchups like they did before? Or will they just line-up the teams NCAA-style and whatever comes up. Remember, all NIT games (other than the Final Four) are played on home courts so care must be taken to play games at places where fans will actually show up.

A couple of weeks ago these matchups would have been possible: Indiana-Notre Dame, Louisville-Kentucky, but now Indiana and Kentucky may be heading to the NCAA.

Teams that will FALL to the NIT if they don't get an automatic bid:

ACC: FSU, Miami, Virginia

Pac 10: Arizona

Big 12: Colorada

SEC: Kentucky

Big East: Syracuse, Cincy, Seton Hall

Big Eleven: Indiana

MWC: San Diego State, BYU, AF

WAC: Utah State, LaTech

A10: St Joe's, Xavier

CUSA: UAB, UTEP, Houston


Teams that I consider locks for the NIT unless they win their conference tourney, and assuming there are enough bids left:

ACC: Maryland

Pac 10: Stanford, USC

Big 12: Nebraska, Texas Tech, Texas A&M (their schedule is designed for an NIT berth after all, so they get what they deserve)

SEC: Vandy

WCC: LMU

On the NIT bubble:

Big Eleven: Minnessoooota

Big East: Louisville? Notre Dame? Rutgers?

Pac 10: Oregon

SEC: Georgia?

ACC: Clemson?

Big 12: Kansas State, Oklahoma State?

Isn't this fun? :-)