The Crown has replaced the NIT as college basketball’s second-best postseason tournament. In its second year in existence, the has brought in many of the biggest March Madness snubs to produce a strong eight-team field with NIL money up for grabs.
The Crown 2026: The full field revealed for men’s college basketball tournament for NIL
Here’s the 8-team field for The Crown, college basketball’s newest tournament for NIL money.
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
The Oklahoma Sooners just missed out on the field of 68, and now they will headline The Crown with a first-round game against Colorado. The winner advances to the semifinals to play the winner of the Baylor Bears vs. the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Stanford headlines the other side of the bracket. Will stud freshman point guard Ebuka Okorie play? The Cardinal will be must-watch if so in their opening round matchup against West Virginia. The winner of that game faces the winner of Creighton vs. Rutgers in the other semifinal.
The Crown has trimmed from 16 teams to eight teams in its second-year. Last season, it offered $300K in NIL money for the winner, $100K for the runner-up, and $50K for semifinalists. We’ll update this post when the purse comes out for this season.
Here’s the full look at the bracket:
The Crown starts on Wednesday, April 1 with Oklahoma vs. Colorado at 8 p.m. ET, followed by Baylor vs. Minnesota. The other team games will happen the next day on Thursday, April 2. All games take place in Las Vegas, and will be broadcast on either Fox or FSI.
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