The National Invitation Tournament Board of Managers has announced new qualification procedures for the 2025 NIT, which include bids going to 16 "exempt" teams, as well as others that may qualify automatically as regular-season conference champions.
Exempt teams will include the top two teams not selected to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship from both the Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference. In addition, the top team not selected to the NCAA championship from the top 12 conferences (based on the Ken Pomeroy Rating) will receive an exempt bid to the NIT. The top teams from each conference will be determined based on the average of the teams' ESPN Basketball Power Index, Kevin Pauga Index, NCAA Evaluation Tool, Ken Pomeroy Rating, Strength of Record, Torvik ranking and Wins Above Bubble ranking. All rankings are already included in the "Team Sheets" used by the NIT Committee during the selection processes.
All teams receiving an exempt bid are guaranteed the opportunity to host a first-round game.
In addition to the exempt teams, regular-season conference champions that are not otherwise selected to the NCAA championship can earn an automatic bid to the NIT as long as that regular-season champion has an average of 125 or better across the BPI, KPI, NET, KenPom, SOR, Torvik and WAB rankings. The rest of the 32-team field will be selected as at-large teams by the NIT Committee.
The NIT Board also approved former head men's basketball coaches Tubby Smith and Jeff Jones as the newest additions to the NIT Committee.
Smith compiled a 642-370 record over 31 seasons at seven schools. His teams made 20 appearances in the NCAA tournament or NIT, including nine Sweet 16 appearances and four trips to the Elite Eight. In 1998, he guided Kentucky to the national championship. He made NIT appearances with Minnesota in 2008 and 2012, with his 2012 team making it to the championship game.
Jones spent 32 years as a college head coach and tallied a 560-418 record at Virginia, American and Old Dominion. His teams made 10 appearances in the NCAA tournament or NIT. His Virginia team won the NIT Championship in 1992, and he guided Old Dominion to the NIT semifinal in 2015.
Smith and Jones will join an NIT committee that will be chaired by Tim Duncan, senior deputy athletics director at Memphis. Other members of the 2024-25 NIT Committee are Morgan State Vice President and Director of Athletics Dena Freeman-Patton, Conference USA Associate Commissioner for Basketball Clifton Douglass, and former Division I men's basketball coaches Phil Martelli, Gary Waters and Bob Williams.
The final action of the NIT Board was to approve use of an experimental rule allowing for a coach's appeal for out-of-bounds calls in the last two minutes of games. The rule would eliminate the official's voluntary ability to review out-of-bounds calls in the last two minutes and instead require a coach's appeal. All appeals will be based on timeouts remaining. If the coach appeals and the call is overturned, the coach will retain all timeouts remaining. If the coach appeals and the call on the floor stands, the team making the appeal will be charged a timeout. Coaches will be allowed to appeal a call with no timeouts remaining. However, if the appeal fails without timeouts, the team will be assessed an excessive timeout administrative technical foul, and the opponent would be awarded two free throws.
The bracket and pairings for the 2025 NIT will be announced Sunday, March 16, with first-round games starting at campus sites Tuesday, March 18. The NIT semifinals and championship will return to historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, with the semifinals scheduled for Tuesday, April 1, and the championship game scheduled for Thursday, April 3.
