2011 NIT Season Tip-Off: Easy Road For Syracuse, Tough One For Stanford

Blogging The Bracket’s analysis of the 2011 NIT Season Tip-Off Bracket notes that Syracuse got a great draw in the bracket, while the other three host teams are likely to have a tougher time.

If the bracket holds, which is not a guarantee, particularly given Stanford’s region, one semifinal would feature the Orange and Hokies, while the Cowboys and Cardinal would meet in the other.

As for the four quadrants, Syracuse has a very easy path to the Big Apple, Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech may be tested, particularly in game two, while Stanford is on upset alert.

Here’s the bracket. The three teams the Orange could possibly face in the first two rounds are Manhattan, Albany and Brown - not exactly a murderer’s row. Manhattan, for example, went 3-15 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference last year.

The other three host teams won’t have it quite so easy. Virginia Tech could face a George Mason team in the second round that beat Villanova in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last year. Oklahoma State could face either Oral Roberts or Texas-San Antonio in the second round, and while those programs aren’t exactly superpowers, they aren’t Manhattan or Brown, either. Stanford, meanwhile, will take on either Colorado State or SMU in the second round, and neither of those schools should be pushovers.