NIT bracket 2025: The full field revealed

In theory the National Invitational Tournament should be a place where mid-majors and lesser-known teams have a chance their chance to compete against the best programs in the country who barely missed out on the big dance of the NCAA Tournament.

A lot has changed in recent years. The NIT has been trying to find ways to carve a niche in postseason basketball. Last year the team made big plays to get power conference teams on board to moderate success, but for 2024-25 there’s now the College Basketball Crown tournament, which will award bids to schools — which fundamentally competes with the NIT for attention.

In what could either be considered sour grapes, or perhaps planning for the new tournament, more and more major programs are avoiding the NIT to instead skip postseason play all together. The idea is that those who just missed the bubble don’t often win the NIT, and losing to a small school could hurt recruiting.

Thus far we have three teams have announced they won’t attend the tournament regardless of whether they get an invite or not: LSU, who finished second-last in the SEC this season will be joined by two ACC teams in Wake Forest and Pitt, all of whom have said they won’t attend this year.

Here is the field for 2025 of teams who have accepted an invite.

1 SMU

Northern Iowa

4 Oklahoma State

Wichita State

3 Arkansas State

Saint Louis

2 North Texas

Furman

1 Dayton

Florida Atlantic

4 Middle Tennessee

Chattanooga

3 Bradley

North Alabama

2 George Mason

Samford

1 UC Irvine

Northern Colorado

4 Georgia Tech

Jacksonville St.

3 Saint Joseph’s

UAB

2 Santa Clara

UC Riverside

1 San Francisco

Utah Valley

4 San Jose St.

Loyola Chicago

3 St. Bonaventure

Kent St.

2 Stanford

CSUN