The 2014 National Invitation Tournament was a

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

of 32 NCAA Division I teams that were not selected to participate in the 2014 NCAA tournament. The annual tournament started on campus sites for the first 3 rounds, with the Final 4 and Championship game being held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The tournament began on Tuesday, March 18 and ended on Thursday, April 3. Minnesota won this tournament after being the 3rd Big Ten team in a row to make the NIT Finals (the two previous years a Big Ten team had lost the final game).

Participants

Automatic qualifiers

The following teams earned automatic berths into the 2014 NIT field having won their respective conference's regular season championship, but failing to win their conference tournament. Southern from the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) was the league regular season champion and lost in their conference tournament but is ineligible for the NIT due to

Academic Progress Rate The Academic Progress Rate (APR) is a measure introduced by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the nonprofit association that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, ...

(APR) sanctions. No team from the SWAC received an NIT autobid.

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

( Pac-12),

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

( American),

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

(

Big 12 The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its f ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

(

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

), Saint Louis (

Atlantic 10 The Atlantic 10 Conference (A-10) is a collegiate athletic conference whose schools compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I. The A-10's member schools are located in states mostly on the United States Eastern ...

San Diego State San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...

( Mountain West) and Villanova (

Big East The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and ...

) received automatic bids to the NIT, but did not accept them as they were selected as at-large teams in the 2014 NCAA Tournament.

At-large bids

The following 19 teams were also awarded NIT berths.

Seeds

Bracket

''Games are played at higher seed unless noted'' *''#2 Illinois played at #7 Boston University and at #3 Clemson due to State Farm Center renovations.''

Media

ESPN has exclusive television rights to all NIT games. They aired every single game across

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially fo ...

, ESPNU and ESPN3. Since 2011

Westwood One Westwood One is an American radio network owned by Cumulus Media. The company syndicates talk, music, and sports programming. The company takes its name from an earlier network also named Westwood One, a company founded in 1978. The compan ...

has held exclusive radio rights to the semifinals and championship. In 2014, John Tautges and

Kelly Tripucka Peter Kelly Tripucka (born February 16, 1959) is an American former professional basketball player who played in the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1981 to 1991. He was a two-time NBA All Star and averaged over twenty points a game ...

called these games for Westwood One.

References

{{2014 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament navbox National Invitation National Invitation Tournament 2010s in Manhattan National Invitation Tournament Basketball in New York City College sports in New York City Madison Square Garden National Invitation Tournament National Invitation Tournament Sports competitions in New York City Sports in Manhattan