NIT Season Tip-Off


The NIT Season Tip-Off is an annual college basketball tournament that takes place in November of each year, toward the beginning of the season. The first two rounds are held at campus sites, while the semifinals and the finals are held during the week of Thanksgiving in Brooklyn. The 2020 tournament was to be held at Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused the NCAA to cancel it. The tournament, which is a part of the regular season for all participating colleges, began in 1985 as the Preseason NIT, so-called in order to distinguish it from the postseason National Invitation Tournament. In 2005, the NCAA purchased the preseason and postseason NIT, and renamed the November tournament the NIT Season Tip-Off. The tournament remains one of the most well-known preseason tournaments in NCAA Division I men's basketball, along with the Maui Invitational.

Tournament format

The tournament had a new format in 2006. The first two rounds were held at regional "common sites" instead of campus sites, making the format more like the postseason NCAA Tournament. Through 2014, the semifinals and finals had always been held at Madison Square Garden. In 2006, the common sites were Charlotte, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, Indianapolis and Spokane, Washington. The tournament returned to its previous format in 2007 then returned to the 2006 format in 2009.
On September 3, 2014 a new format was announced for the NIT Season Tip-Off. The NIT Season Tip-Off will no longer be a bracketed event, instead becoming a classic with set semifinal matchups in New York, after the NCAA could only get eight teams in the field instead of 16. The NCAA-run event will add a new wrinkle due to the reduced field and feature a showcase of games on Thanksgiving Day with the other four teams that are not in the championship. Teams in the NIT Season Tip-Off will play four games at campus sites prior to the eight teams' arrival in New York.
The NIT Season Tip-Off tournament was not held in 2022 but did return for 2023 and subsequent years.

Tournament history

Venues

Madison Square Garden hosted the semifinal and final rounds for the first three decades, since the tournament's inception. Beginning in 2015, Barclays Center in Brooklyn will hold the two semifinal games on Thanksgiving Day, as well as the championship game the following day. Barclays Center will also have the 2016 and 2018 semis and finals. In 2017, the tournament is scheduled to move over to the nearby Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, which is in the process of getting a major renovation to its facilities.

Championship games

Brackets

* – Denotes overtime period

2024

  • '''November 28 – November 29'''

2020

The field originally included Cincinnati Bearcats men's basketball team|Cincinnati], Arizona, Texas Tech Red Raiders basketball team|Texas Tech] and St. John's.
An initial attempt was made to move the event to the bubble at the ESPN [Wide World of Sports Complex] in Walt Disney World, but the tournament was eventually cancelled outright due to COVID-19.

2012

2007