It’s not unusual for one or two teams to turn down an NIT invitation, but the 2021 edition was rejected by plenty of prominent invitees.
Like the NCAA Tournament, the NIT will change its format slightly this year. Most notably, the tournament will take place entirely in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Without the prestige of the NCAA Tournament involved, that is not proving to be an ideal draw for a lot of teams.
As of Sunday night, five teams — all from major conferences — passed on NIT invitations. They include the likes of Duke and Louisville.
There’s nothing terribly surprising about most of these. A program like Duke, which had to pull out of an ACC tournament game due to a positive COVID-19 test, has little to gain from going to Texas to play in the NIT. Louisville is next up for an NCAA Tournament bid if a team from a multi-bid conference has to withdraw, and that team almost certainly wouldn’t want to have to think about preparing for an NIT game as long as there’s even a chance that a spot in March Madness opens up for them. Plus, they’ve got other things to be mad about.
Colorado State, Memphis, Saint Louis, and Ole Miss did accept their NIT invites, and are the four top seeds in this year’s bracket.
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