The National Invitational Tournament is shrinking in size and moving its annual tournament this month, the NCAA announced Monday.
The NIGHT will feature 16 teams playing in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, with games at the Frisco Comerica Center and the UNT Coliseum on the North Texas campus in Denton.
In previous years, the tournament featured 32 teams with games held at campus venues through the semifinals and the championship game at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Another notable change is the invitation process. Since 2017, all regular season champions who did not win their conference tournament received an automatic bid on NIT, with the rest of the field filled with general selections. Due to the narrow field, all 16 teams will be selected on a large scale, with no automatic classifications.
Last season there were no tournaments due to the coronavirus pandemic, which left Texas as the defending champion. The Longhorns beat Lipscomb in the 2019 title.