National Invitation Tournament
The National Invitation Tournament ( NIT) is an American invitational tournament in college basketball, which is discharged from the NCAA since 2005. The tournament was organized for the first time, however, in 1938, one year before the founding of the NCAA. Since 1985, a second tournament mode, which is in contrast to the original tournament held not by the college basketball season, but before it exists. This so-called NIT Season Tip- Off takes place every year in November. The older of the two formats is traditionally held at New York's Madison Square Garden in March. Only the latter is in common parlance referred to as the National Invitation Tournament and provided with the common abbreviation " NIT". Both host variants were organized prior to the takeover by the NCAA of the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association ( MIBA ).
History
The NIT was organized in the first two years of event sports journalists of the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association. From 1940, joined for this task five colleges from New York together: Fordham University, Manhattan College, New York University, St. John's University and Wagner College. Since 1948, this group is officially Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association known as.
In the early years of the NIT all matches of the tournament were played exclusively at Madison Square Garden. Especially in the 40s and 50s this was a reason for the great popularity of the NIT, as the media coverage in New York was very charming for all teams. The first round of the NIT will be held at the local sites of the participating universities only since 1977. Only the semi-finals and finals will take place since at Madison Square Garden. The change of discharge mode was not least in the hitherto much higher number of participants. 1938 played only six teams, the tournament among themselves, in 1949 only twelve, in 1979 there were 24 A record number of participants in 2002 was 40 teams. Since 2007, the field is limited to 32.
Takeover by the NCAA
In 2005, the MIBA sold the historic tournament at the NCAA for a total price of 56.5 million U.S. dollars. Of this total, $ 16 million flowed into the end of the previous proceedings between MIBA and NCAA. Back in 2001, the organizers of the NIT had sued the NCAA league competition under the alleged distortion of competition. In the applicants' opinion, the NCAA operational active measures to reduce the success of the events of the NIT. To the center of the allegations was the so-called "Commitment to participate participation " rule, according to the team that will be selected for participation in the NCAA tournament, even in this tournament held at NIT participate. With the common decision to sell the dispute was settled.
Sporting importance
Due to the great success of the NCAA Tournament, the NIT lost over the years in importance in the U.S. college basketball. Especially since the NCAA rules prohibit college teams to participate in other tournaments if they have qualified for the NCAA tournament, the NIT is struggling with the image of a tournament for " losers." On the other hand, the NIT for less successful teams very reason an attractive alternative, since it will be found here in the absence of the top teams in the country media attention. More recently, other tournaments such as the discharged since 2008 College Basketball Invitational have emerged that are comparable in terms of alignment with the NIT.
NIT Tournament Winner
Record winner of the Post Season NITs are six titles with the teams of today's St. John's University. However, the team resigned from her most recent title in 2003 after the university was transferred in 2006 by the NCAA of the player Abe Keita illegal payment. St. John then declared all team victories for officially invalid, in which Keita was on the floor. This included, among other things, the NIT finals in 2003.
The other two years without tournament winner (1997, 1998) back to Title stoppages for formal reasons, each performed after the tournament.