Discuss
what you see. Follow the Bracket Project on
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For commentary and archived brackets, please visit
The Bracket Project Blog. What's this all
about? Teams
not qualifying for the NCAA tournament have the
opportunity to be invited to one of three other postseason tournaments:
The
NIT features a 32-team field chosen right after the NCAA
chooses the 68 teams in its tournament. The CBI features 16 teams
and the CIT will have 24 teams. The
CollegeInsider tournament requires teams to have a .500 record or
better while the NIT and CBI do not have such a
requirement. Also, colleges have been known to decline an
invitation to the CBI and CIT tournaments due to the lack of interest
in playing a third-tier tournament or to the pay-to-play nature of
these tournaments.
The tournament champion from the Great West conference will be granted
an automatic
berth to the CIT.
To get a feel for what kind of teams the CBI and CIT invite to their
tournaments, these were the 2011 participants along with their record
and RPI.
The 2011 CBI and CIT teams:
CBI: Central Florida (19-11, 69), Hofstra (21-11, 86), James Madison
(21-11, 88), Rhode Island (19-13, 101), Montana (21-10, 106), Duquesne
(18-12, 108), Miami, OH (16-16, 111), Boise State (20-12, 113), St.
Bonaventure (16-14, 122), Creighton (19-14, 123), Austin Peay (20-13,
130), Oregon (16-17, 135), Evansville (15-15, 136), San Jose State
(17-15, 149), Weber State (18-13, 150), Davidson (17-14, 182)
CIT: Marshall (22-11, 54), Iona (22-11, 68), Valparaiso (23-11, 71),
East Tennessee State (22-11, 91), East Carolina (18-15, 96), Portland
(20-11, 103), Rider (23-10, 105), Air Force (15-15, 110), Northern Iowa
(19-13, 112), Furman (22-10, 116), San Francisco (17-14, 120), Oral
Roberts (19-15, 131), Idaho (18-13, 137), Jacksonville (19-11, 142),
Quinnipiac (22-9, 144), Northern Arizona (19-12, 152), Santa Clara
(19-14, 158), Hawaii (18-12, 162), Ohio (18-15, 163), Buffalo (18-13,
166), Western Michigan (20-12, 174), Tennessee Tech (20-12, 189), SMU
(17-14, 206), North Dakota* (19-14, 271)
* - North Dakota was the Great West representative which received an
automatic bid to the CIT.