We need as many regular season champs in 1 bid leagues to win their conference tournament. A loss puts the regular season champ in the NIT.
Interesting in the Atlantic Sun, if Jacksonville loses to Bellarmine, Jacksonville State is the automatic bid b/c Bellarmine isn’t eligible for the number 1 seed.
Need Bryant to win the NEC tonight too.
It’s going to be close.
I’m not convinced that it is going to be as close as many on this board suggest. I really do think that we are a lock for the NIT. Our NET rating is currently 67. There are 68 NCAA tourney bids (including the “play-in” games) and 32 NIT bids for a total of 100 post-season bids (forget the buy-in tourneys). Are there going to be 33 regular season conference winners that don’t make the Big Dance? I just don’t see that as a real possibility.
In addition to pulling for Bellarmine and Bryant, add #1 seed South Dakota St in The Summit Conference tonight as they are playing #2 seed North Dakota St.
question: if teams tie for 1st in the regular season conference play, and neither win the conference tourney, then do they both get an auto-bid into the NIT?
No, only one gets the bid.
how do they decide which of the two gets the autobid (assuming they split the head-to-head games)? Non-conference record? SOS? NET rating?
The criteria is typically detetmined by what you do in conference play and #1 seed may be given to one team over another based on how each fared to the next highest team in conference play. So for example, if teams tied atop conference split, how did each do against 3rd place finisher, 4th place finisher, etc…as tiebreaker.
Agree, we’re a 4-6 seed based on most projections, that would take 8-12 upsets in tournaments…
I think we’re closer to 5-6 than 4. We should be good, but I guess i’m pessimistic. Bellarmine and Bryant have done their job, Chattanooga was big yesterday.
We’ve done pretty well so far. As of now, by my amateur count, the following teams are guaranteed to “steal bids”: Northern Iowa, Cleveland State,Texas State, Townson are already locked in.
WAC, Big West,MEAC, Ivy, Patriot, USA, MAAC, Mid American could still poach bids.
I like your guys optimism.
Assuming we do make it and considering the trend of trying to keep opening games regional, most likely opponents would be Washington State, Oregon, Colorado, Fresno State, and Grand Canyon.
This is how starved we are… we’re talking about the NIT. Successful programs are like “Aw crap, the NIT”
I know Betterer… I know. 
Gotta start somewhere.
I was at SCU from 85-89, so I feel spoiled in that 3 of my 4 years, we were in the dance in 87, NIT 88/89. We gave LMU a run both my Junior and Senior year but fell short.
Obviously the NIT is not the goal, but still view it as a solid consolation prize to the dance, when you put things in perspective as to having Gonzaga in our conference. I feel that we’re turning the corner, feel that we will get in, and excited for the season to continue.
Pistol, you are so right. You have to start somewhere and at the beginning of the year there was a lot of hope but not many (if any) were predicting NCAA’s. NIT is ok. So close last night but missed to many free throws and our D needs to improve. Had we won last night, who knows? I agree we look Ike we are turning the corner and looking for better seasons to come. We do lose some players so we will have some big holes to fill. Go Broncos!
On the other end of the spectrum, a couple of my Zags friends are worried that if they don’t win the national title this year then they never will. Arkansas, Alabama, LSU all have Top 10 recruiting classes as the NIL landscape has introduced new basketball “powers.” Don’t get me wrong, they still think they will be a Top 10 Program…but just not sure they will be a pre-season National Champion favorite again anytime soon.
Life’s too short to not smile along the way, there’s been 20+ years of hurt… I’ll take an NIT appearance this year. This group of kids deserve something after a crazy 2 years.
Good thing for Gonzaga, the basketball powerhouse cycle resets every single year with 1 and dones. They’ve had two of the best the last two years and are also a program that’s able to keep guys like timme for 4.
They’ll be just fine.
Almost a perfect night in terms of a “NIT Bubble.”
I feel much better. Totally agree that these guys deserve it!
'Bob- I think your overestimating the NIL advantage of P6 over Gonzaga. Many of the Gonzaga players already have NIL’s. Timme has multiple deals including with the biggest, most successful Indian Casino in the region, he has done numerous TV commercials for them, airing constantly, not backwater cable channels but on ESPN and network prime time stuff running over and over. I have no idea what he’s making but I do know the Casino has extremely deep pockets and sinks millions in to advertising and promotions so I’m betting (pun intended) that Timme is doing quite well. If your Gonzaga friends live in Spokane, they would see/know this.
And I fully expect that some of the deep pocket individual supporters of GU’s program will be doing NIL deals with GU players through their business enterprises.
People have underestimated GU for 20+ years and generally end up being wrong.
buckets- re: conference leader ties and the NIT bid, I assume the league’s #1 seed in their tourney also gets the guaranteed NIT bid if they don’t win their tourney.
Also, without researching recent years, I’m guessing about 1/3 to 1/2 of the NCAA autobids (so 12 to 15) and several of NIT auto bids are teams who are well below Top 100 or even Top 150 and thus are consuming some 15 to 20 of those 100 NCAA and NIT bids, so some teams in the NET 75-100 range may not make the NCAA nor NIT. Plus, I suspect some P6 teams ranked say 5 to 15 spots behind us may get the nod over us.
All that said, I do think we deserve an NIT and I’d put our odds at about 75% probability…just wouldn’t bet the house on it. Just my opinion.