2021 NIT

[Da Coach]

There will be an NIT tournament in 2021, but there are some significant changes. It will be cut back from 32 teams to 16 teams, and all games will be held in New York City. In addition, this year's NIT will not give automatic bids to conference champions who do not get bids to the NCAA Tournament.
https://twitter.com/JFeinsteinBooks/status/1361317126875860994

 

[Tommy]

There will be an NIT tournament in 2021, but there are some significant changes. It will be cut back from 32 teams to 16 teams, and all games will be held in New York City. In addition, this year's NIT will not give automatic bids to conference champions who do not get bids to the NCAA Tournament.
https://twitter.com/JFeinsteinBooks/status/1361317126875860994

Curious to see if they are changing the rules on automatic bids to get more power conference teams in. If so, that would be extremely disappointing.

 

[Da Coach]

I think that change has more to do with how many automatic qualifiers there usually are each year (an average of 12 each year between 2011 and 2019) and the more limited number of slots this year (16).
Here are the number of automatic qualifiers (conference winners) in the NIT for the last decade-
2019- 10
2018- 12
2017- 10
2016- 15
2015- 12
2014- 13
2013- 10
2012- 11
2011- 14

With shrinking it to just 16 teams, they needed to eliminate the autobids to be able to get more quality teams that TV viewers will want to watch. Otherwise it will be filled with teams like Morgan State, Sam Houston State, Prairie View A&M, etc.

 

[basketball nut]

There will be an NIT tournament in 2021, but there are some significant changes. It will be cut back from 32 teams to 16 teams, and all games will be held in New York City. In addition, this year's NIT will not give automatic bids to conference champions who do not get bids to the NCAA Tournament.
https://twitter.com/JFeinsteinBooks/status/1361317126875860994

Surprised that they chose NYC since NY has been making everyone quarantine when they come into the state. Maybe Cuomo is letting up some since it seems like he might be in some hot water.