NATIONAL INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT : Long Beach in 32-Team Field
Cal State Long Beach, beaten by Big West tournament champion New Mexico State in the semifinals, was named to the 32-team field for the National Invitation Tournament Sunday night.
The 49ers, 18-11 overall and 11-7 in Big West regular-season games, will play at Texas Christian (22-10) Thursday night.
Notre Dame and Villanova, both with 14-14 records, also got NIT bids. Notre Dame will play host to Western Michigan (21-8) on Wednesday, while Virginia (15-13) will visit Villanova.
In other first-round games Wednesday, it will be Alabama Birmingham (20-8) at Tennessee (18-14); Western Kentucky (21-10) at Kansas State (15-13); Pittsburgh (17-15) at Penn State (21-7); and Minnesota (16-15) at Washington State (21-10).
On Thursday, it will be Wisconsin Green Bay (25-4) at Manhattan (23-8); Butler (21-9) at Purdue (16-14); Richmond (22-7) at Florida (16-12); Rhode Island (20-9) at Vanderbilt (15-14); Southern Illinois (22-7) at Boston College (16-13); Louisiana Tech (23-7) at New Mexico (18-12); Ball State (24-8) at Utah (20-10); and Arizona State (18-13) at UC Santa Barbara (20-8).
James Madison (20-10) will visit Rutgers (15-14) on Friday in the other opening-round game.
Second-round games will be played on March 23-24, with the quarterfinals on March 25-26, also at campus sites.
The semifinals on March 30 and championship game on April 1 will be held at Madison Square Garden.
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