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History and Expansion of the NIT Tournament

Here's the background of the NIT's field size over the years and how it went from the prestige college basketball competition to second to the Big Dance.

Josh Wilson

The NIT has existed longer than 'March Madness'
The NIT has existed longer than 'March Madness' / Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

Today, March Madness, formerly known as the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, is ubiquitous in American culture. Casuals and diehards alike fill out brackets and become captivated by the early afternoon weekday postseason games.

Most of the madness of March happens in the massive, 68-team tournament, but there is another layer of competition for a second tier of schools that don't make the Big Dance that is still all so important to the participating players, coaches, students and fans.

Today, the NIT (National Invitation Tournament) is lesser-known, and viewed as a step down from the larger men's college basketball postseason tournament. Being invited to the Big Dance is preferable. It wasn't always this way, though, with March Madness having usurped NIT's dominance and head-start in attention going back nearly a century. For an era, teams skirted the NCAA's official tournament for the coveted invite to the NIT.

The NIT has been played for nearly 90 years, opening in 1938. Temple University won the inaugural competition, and 54 different schools have won it over the years. At present, every round through the quarterfinals is played on campuses, with the semifinals and finals played at a neutral site. In 2025, it will be played in Indianapolis at Hinkle Fieldhouse, where it was played last year and will be played in 2026 as well.

When Did March Madness Become the 'Bigger' Tournament?

Two main factors led to March Madness becoming the Big Dance we know it to be today: Field size and broadcasting strength.

In terms of field size, the tournament now known as March Madness usurped the NIT in 1952 when it grew from just eight teams to 16, four more than NIT had at the time. In 1975, the men's basketball tournament increased to 32, doubling the NIT which didn't grow to 16 until 1967. 1973 was a year that the men's basketball tournament really took a foothold when the nationally-televised title game was moved to Monday night for the first time, a primetime slot.

Over the years, the NIT and March Madness tournament have gone from rivals in the sport's playoff format to complements of sorts that add dimension to how the best teams of the year are crowned. 2026 will truly make that clear when the Final Four, Division II, Division III and NIT will all be determined over the course of five days in the same city: Indianapolis.

NIT Field Size History

Now less than half the field size of March Madness, NIT fields 32 teams today, but it has grown over time. Here's the size as it's changed over the years.

Years

Field Size

1938

6

1941-48

8

1949-64

12

1965-67

14

1967-1978

16

1979

24

1980-2001

32

2002-05

40

2006-19

32

2020

Canceled

2021

16

2022-present

32

The tournament was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic, and was played with a smaller field in 2021 for the same reason. The current iteration of the tournament has been played with a 32-team field for two decades now, excluding pandemic exemptions.

The field's final change occurred after the 2005 season happened in tandem with the NCAA purchasing the NIT, which was previously owned by the now disbanded Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association.

Women's NIT

The entity that owned the NIT before the NCAA did not own a comparable women's invitational. Other tournaments did exist, including one that took on a similar name (WNIT).

In 2024, the NCAA created its own version of a second tier of competition below women's March Madness: The Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament (better known as WBIT). Illinois beat Villanova in the inaugural season.

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Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

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