The NIT Season Tip-Off is an annual college basketball tournament that takes place in November of each year, toward the beginning of the season. The first two rounds are held at campus sites, while the semifinals and the finals are held during the week of Thanksgiving in Brooklyn, NY. 2020's tournament was to be held at Amway Center in Orlando, FL, but the COVID-19 pandemic caused the NCAA to cancel it. The tournament, which is a part of the regular season for all participating colleges, began in 1985 as the Preseason NIT, so-called in order to distinguish it from the post-season NIT. In 2005, the NCAA purchased the Men's Preseason and Postseason NIT and renamed the November tournament the NIT Season Tip-Off. The tournament remains one of the most well-known preseason tournaments in NCAA Division I men's basketball, along with the Maui Invitational.
Tournament Format
The tournament had a new format in 2006.[1] The first two rounds were held at regional "common sites" instead of campus sites, making the format more like the postseason NCAA Tournament. Through 2014, the semifinals and finals had always been held at Madison Square Garden. In 2006, the common sites were Charlotte, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, Indianapolis and Spokane, Washington. The tournament returned to its previous format in 2007 then returned to the 2006 format in 2009.
On September 3, 2014 a new format was announced for the NIT Season Tip-Off. The NIT Season Tip-Off will no longer be a bracketed event, instead becoming a classic with set semifinal matchups in New York, after the NCAA could only get eight teams in the field instead of 16. The NCAA-run event will add a new wrinkle due to the reduced field and feature a showcase of games on Thanksgiving Day with the other four teams that are not in the championship. Teams in the NIT Season Tip-Off will play four games at campus sites prior to the eight teams' arrival in New York.[2]
The NIT Season Tip-Off tournament will not occur in 2022, but it will return in 2023.
Tournament History
Venues
Madison Square Garden hosted the semifinal and final rounds for the first three decades, since the tournament's inception. Beginning in 2015, Barclays Center in Brooklyn will hold the two semifinal games on Thanksgiving Day, as well as the championship game the following day. Barclays Center will also have the 2016 and 2018 semis and finals. In 2017, the tournament is scheduled to move over to the nearby Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, which is in the process of getting a major renovation to its facilities.[3]
