Under New Management: Bad Sign for the NIT?

After changing hands last summer, college basketball’s oldest tournament is under new management and facing an uncertain future.

In the settlement of an antitrust dispute in which the NCAA was accused of trying to put the National Invitation Tournament out of business, the NIT’s early season and postseason tournaments were purchased by the NCAA in August for $56.5 million. But what it ultimately plans to do with the events is unclear.

Some fear the worst.

“Wal-Mart bought the mom-and-pop store,” said former Utah coach Rick Majerus, an ESPN commentator. “It’s going to become corporate, NCAA corporate. It’s going to become part of a conglomerate, and I think as a separate entity it had a unique charm. It had a flavor that was all its own.”

Jack Powers, executive director of the NIT, said that Majerus and others shouldn’t rush to judgment.

“I know what Rick is saying,” Powers said, “but I think he might be surprised himself when he sees how the tournament is going to function. I’m very confident in how the tournament can be enriched by the NCAA.”

The NCAA has promised to preserve and enhance the tournaments but has offered few details. Its settlement with the five New York City colleges that had operated the NIT since its inception in 1938 -- Fordham, St. John’s, Manhattan, Wagner and New York University -- stipulates that the events be kept alive and in New York only the next five years.

Some believe that the postseason NIT, which debuted one year before the NCAA tournament crowned its first champion in 1939, could be in jeopardy.

Michael Gilleran, commissioner of the West Coast Conference, said that the NCAA “could very well decide that 65 postseason opportunities is enough. Now that we own this event, we really don’t need to send more of you on the road during the academic year. And that would be a reasonable position to take....

“Certainly, we can all argue, ‘How much is too much?’ So, it wouldn’t shock me if people were to say, ‘Do we really need 40 more teams participating in postseason basketball?’ That would be an interesting discussion.”

A New York City institution, the NIT plays the semifinal and final rounds in both of its tournaments at Madison Square Garden, a large part of the events’ appeal to the 56 schools that participate in the events each year.

The original NIT at one time was considered more prestigious than the NCAA tournament but long ago was eclipsed by March Madness, in part because in 1962 it agreed to give the NCAA the first pick of tournament teams. It is now mostly an afterthought to fans, a season-extending consolation prize to 40 teams unable to crack the NCAA tournament’s field.

By contrast, the so-called preseason NIT -- rechristened the NIT Season Tipoff by the NCAA -- has cherry-picked elite teams for its 16-team November event and has been a marquee attraction since its inception in 1985. This year’s field includes four top-20 teams, among them top-ranked Duke and No. 19 UCLA, which plays New Mexico State in a first-round game Tuesday night at Pauley Pavilion.

NCAA executive Greg Shaheen, vice president of Division I men’s basketball, said the NCAA would spend the next year “studying the NIT events for consideration of future operations.”

Shaheen called the early season NIT “a long-term proposition,” an event the NCAA would like to promote to better define the start of the season.

But asked about the viability of the postseason NIT, which runs concurrently with the NCAA tournament, Shaheen said in an e-mail, “Our priority, first and foremost, will always be the ... NCAA national championships. Specifically, the Division I men’s and women’s basketball championships are the national championships of college basketball.”

In the short term, Shaheen said the NCAA would work to make the selection process for the postseason NIT more “transparent and defined.” Jurors hearing the NIT’s lawsuit against the NCAA last summer learned that ESPN played a part in selecting which teams got NIT bids, based on television appeal.

After the settlement, NCAA President Myles Brand said that the selection committee that chooses teams for the NCAA tournament would not also determine the NIT field.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Preseason NIT

Schedule for the 2005 NIT Season Tip-Off, all times PST:

FIRST ROUND

* Monday’s games

Boston University at Duke, 4:30 p.m.

Manhattan at Seton Hall, 4:30 p.m.

Sam Houston State at Missouri, 5 p.m.

Drexel at Princeton, 4:30 p.m.

* Tuesday’s games

Miami, Ohio, at Alabama, 5 p.m.

Wis. Milwaukee at Memphis, 5 p.m.

Army at Temple, 4 p.m.

New Mexico State at UCLA, 7 p.m.

* Second round, Wednesday and Thursday

* Semifinals, Nov. 23

* Third-place and championship games, Nov. 25 at Madison Square Garden

*--* PAST CHAMPIONS

1985 ... Duke 1995 ... Arizona 1986 ... UNLV 1996 ... Indiana 1987 ... Florida 1997 ... Kansas 1988 ... Syracuse 1998 ... North Carolina 1989 ... Kansas 1999 ... Arizona 1990 ... Arizona 2000 ... Duke 1991 ... Oklahoma State 2001 ... Syracuse 1992 ... Indiana 2002 ... North Carolina 1993 ... Kansas 2003 ... Georgia Tech 1994 ... Ohio 2004 ... Wake Forest

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