Let me clear up some of the "prestige" confusion that seems to be apparent here.
I hear a lot from BU fans that the NIT was the more prestigious event for a long time. That is true to an extent, but one must be careful when making a blanket statement without explaining the details of tourney history.
The first strictly national collegiate postseason was the NAIB (precursor to NAIA) in 1937.
The NIT organizers saw an opportunity to make some big money with the nation's most well-known teams and started their own event in 1938.
There was initially some reluctance from major conference powers, because a loss may have threatened their national prestige. A shining example of that coming in a few paragraphs. . .
In 1939, the NCAA started its event to prevent someone else from stealing their product, and it was done an invitational basis. Bradley was invited, but declined the bid for two reasons, to show loyalty to the NIT, and also because they had already beaten Oregon (#1 team in the country and eventual NCAA champ) and the players didn't think they could repeat the feat, so they returned to the NIT. Also, the bid Bradley declined went to Ohio State, who that year was coached by Harold "Ole" Olsson, who coached Bradley in 1919. The Buckeyes made the most of it, reaching the title game.
The first attempt to get some prestige back from the NIT was the following year in 1940 when the NCAA began implementation of their one conference, one bid invitation system which was intended to gather the best teams from the 6 best conferences that year. The only problem was there wasn't a great wealth of conferences in basketball yet. In fact there were only 7-8 conferences recognized by the NCAA, and a couple of them weren't regarded very highly. Over the next few years a number of conferences would form.
Bradley at that time played in the Illinois Collegiate Conference, a league they dominated, but membership was largely made up of schools who were probably closer to the "college" or NAIA level.
In 1940, Purdue won the Western Conference outright, but were swept by 2nd place Indiana in the regular season. At that point, Purdue held a 51-11 lead in the all-time series. Purdue's coach "Piggy" Lambert was vehemently opposed to the idea of basketball postseason tournaments and publicly declined the Boilermaker's bid, which went to Indiana--who went on to win and probably forever reversed the dominance of the rivalry.
This left the NIT to still be able to pickup the popular and well-known independent powers such as Duquesne, DePaul, and the local favorites such as St. John's and Long Island.
In 1941, the informal grouping of schools known as the "Ivy League" (wouldn't be a formal "league" until 1954) was granted a bid to an outstanding member, and one bid was left for the most outstanding team either as an independent or at-large.
As the decade moved on, the college game was slowly becoming big business on the east coast, but the NCAA Tournament had so many teams doing well from out west that seemed very obscure to many and as teams like Colorado and Utah did well attendance in the later rounds wasn't as great.
So the NIT flourished because people were familiar with the teams. Bradley became quite popular. It was said "You could throw a Bradley Jacket on the court at the Garden and 10,000 people would show up to see what would happen."
By 1948, Bradley was in the Valley. Many of the local New York schools such as NYU and CCNY formed what was called the Middle Atlantic Conference. A number of smaller schools from New England (such as Holy Cross, Providence, Rhode Island, and Connecticut) formed another conference, and an early precursor to the West Coast Conference had been created.
As early as 1945, the independents had all but been excluded from the NCAA. And you had probably even more teams that fans in New York weren't familiar with, and the NIT kept getting bigger in terms of popularity.
Schools lobbied to the NCAA Tournament to bring back at-large invitations to independent schools. As the 1948 season wore on, the NCAA considered the move, but would ultimately decline.
As a result of the pinch, in 1948 both Bradley and Kentucky figured to have good enough teams to be included. And they did. But both tournaments went without expansion. Bradley was in talks to add a late season game with Kentucky when Adolph Rupp in hopes a win could boost BU into was scheduled to give a speech in Peoria, but two weeks before it would have happened, Kentucky had secured the Southern championship and didn't want his team to have to play an extra game before the NCAA. Ultimately BU would also miss out on the NIT.
There was public outrage about Bradley's omission from the postseason. So, since the NCAA would not expand, the NIT would for the 1949 postseason, inviting 12 teams.
Around this time the media began acknowledging the NCAA Champion as the true National Champion, but NIT Champions also had a legitimate claim, simply because they weren't eligible for the most part in the NIT.
Yet, in 1950 the NCAA still moved Bradley's regional round game to accommodate their participation in the NIT.
Over the next couple years, the NCAA still went unchanged until 1951 when it expanded to 16 teams and gave ALL conferences recognized a bid, and allowed independents to fill any remaining spots, and split the field into Eastern and Western regionals. In 1951 the NIT remained at 12 teams. But many teams were reluctant to participate in either tournament because of the point shaving scandal fallout. Schools did not want to expose their players to those dangers. So also in 1951, there were a number of smaller "national" invitational postseason events in other locations, among those was a tournament held on BU's campus, the NCBT, and one that BU participated at in Hawai'i, finishing runner-up in both.
By the early 1950's it was clear the NCAA was the tournament you wanted to win as the winner increasingly was acknowledged as the National Champion.
In 1953, the NCAA expanded to 22 teams as new leagues continued to form. The regions were split into two groups of 10 leagues each, and each region's two best independents extended invites.
In 1954, the way the regions were divided, Bradley and Oklahoma City were the only indies in the Western region. Both had outstanding teams. Ok City had an honorable mention All-American and Bradley would reach the Championship game.
In 1955, both teams would meet again courtesy of the same rule. But both teams had losing records. BU would win, and win the next game against SMU to reach the Elite 8 before losing to Colorado.
Bradley's NIT championships in 1957 and the early 1960's are still regarded as great achievements. But by 1960, the NIT was already regarded a second-tier tournament.
While there was no doubt prestige in winning, I cringe as Bradley embraces that as the hallmark of its success. Sure it's a point of pride. We all have tremendous pride in BU's history. But let us not forget it is a history of runners-up finishes--exemplified by the CBI and CIT most recently--and when we won the NIT's, it was a second-tier tournament. Prestigious yes, but not as big as we make it.
That said, the 1957 NIT team was a groundbreaker and John Wooden likely used Bradley's surprising of Xavier by pressing non-stop for the final 30 minutes as a model for his success at UCLA. It was over the next two years when Wooden began incorporating constant full-court pressure on UCLA's opponents.
