NCAA Will Purchase NIT

[NewsCopy]

INDIANAPOLIS -- The NCAA and the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (MIBA) have agreed to terms under which the NCAA will purchase the rights to and operate the preseason and postseason National Invitation Tournaments (NIT), effective immediately.

NCAA President Myles Brand and John Sexton, president of New York University, one of the five schools that have owned the NIT events since the 1940s, will jointly announce the sale and purchase at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, August 17, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The Garden has been the site of the finals for the postseason NIT since its inception in 1938, and is expected to continue to host the preseason and postseason events.

The other four schools that compose MIBA are Fordham University, Manhattan College, Wagner College and St. John's University (New York). All five are also members of the NCAA.

The agreement ends litigation that has been ongoing between the two parties for four years. MIBA sued the NCAA in 2001, claiming antitrust violations with regard to the Association's Division I Men's Basketball Championship. Trial had begun August 1, in New York City and was expected to continue to the end of the month.

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[Tripple Threat]

I was hoping that with the equalization of the teams that are now in the NCAA that the NIT might gain some of the prominence it once had. The NCAA couldn't have competition from a tournament that was once in the lead of college basketball. I hate to see big business take over anything.

[Tuffguy21]

I was hoping that with the equalization of the teams that are now in the NCAA that the NIT might gain some of the prominence it once had. The NCAA couldn't have competition from a tournament that was once in the lead of college basketball. I hate to see big business take over anything.

Ugh, I hate this. We might as well say goodbye to any chance we had of making that post season tourny because the NIT will now buckle to the BCS money and leave good non-BCS teams without a postseason to send 12th place big twelve teams to a post season tourny. This is a very dark day for college basketball.

Tuffguy

[OldBullDog]

This here and that Indian flap tells me that when the all powerful NCAA wants a football playoff it will happen overnight.

[CDeb]

Ugh, I hate this. We might as well say goodbye to any chance we had of making that post season tourny because the NIT will now buckle to the BCS money and leave good non-BCS teams without a postseason to send 12th place big twelve teams to a post season tourny. This is a very dark day for college basketball.

Tuffguy

That already happens now. The NIT makes their selections pretty much solely on how much money they will make.