2016 National Invitation Tournament


The 2016 National Invitation Tournament was a single-elimination tournament of 32 NCAA Division I teams that were not selected to participate in the 2016 NCAA Tournament. The annual tournament was played on campus sites for the first three rounds, with the Final Four and championship game being held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The tournament began on Tuesday, March 15 and ended on Thursday, March 31. An experimental rule allowing players six personal fouls instead of five was approved for use in all national postseason tournaments except for the NCAA Tournament. The NIT Selection Show aired at 8:30 PM EDT on Sunday, March 13, 2016 on ESPNU. George Washington were the champions over Valparaiso.

Participants

Automatic qualifiers

The following fifteen teams earned automatic berths into the 2016 NIT field by virtue of having won their respective conference's regular season championship but failed to win their conference tournaments and did not receive an at-large NCAA bid.
ConferenceTeamAppearanceLast bid
Atlantic SunNorth Florida1stNever
Big SouthHigh Point2nd2014
CAAHofstra5th2007
C-USAUAB12th2010
HorizonValparaiso3rd2012
MAACMonmouth1stNever
MACAkron4th2012
Mountain WestSan Diego State6th2009
NECWagner3rd2002
Ohio ValleyBelmont3rd2014
PatriotBucknell3rd2015
SummitIPFW1stNever
SWACTexas Southern2nd2011
WACNew Mexico State5th2000
WCCSaint Mary's5th2015

Seeds

The first four teams left out of the NCAA tournament were the top seeds in the four regions, as in last year's tournament. They were St. Bonaventure, South Carolina, Monmouth and Valparaiso.

Schedule

The NIT began on Tuesday March 15. The first three rounds were played on campus sites. The Final Four began on Tuesday, March 29 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and ended there with the championship game on Thursday, March 31.

Bracket

^Florida was not able to host home games at the O'Connell Center due to arena renovations.
* Denotes overtime period

Media

had exclusive television rights to all NIT games. It will telecast every game across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and ESPN3. Since 2011, Westwood One had exclusive radio rights to the semifinals and championship. In 2016 Scott Graham and Kelly Tripucka provided the call.
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