NIT Tournament 2012: Stanford Blows Out Minnesota To Take Title

Stanford was left out of the 2012 NCAA Tournament and didn’t look like the best Pac-12 team in the 2012 NIT. But the Cardinal made it to Madison Square Garden for Thursday’s final, and stomped Minnesota, 75-51, for the 2012 NIT Championship.

Those steals contributed to 21 Minnesota turnovers, but the Gophers’ main problem was a lack of depth. No Minnesota player had more than Rodney Williams’ 12 points, and just six Minnesota players scored.

At halftime of the 2012 NIT Championship, Stanford has a 31-25 lead on Minnesota, and the Golden Gophers may need more than Rodney Williams to keep pace with the Cardinal.

For Minnesota, do-everything forward Williams is, well, doing everything. He leads the Golden Gophers with 12 points and is tied for the team lead with three rebounds. And among Minnesota players with more than two points on the night, Williams is the only one with fewer than two turnovers.

The 2012 NIT Championship tips off Thursday night as a college hoops appetizer to this weekend’s Final Four action. The title game features two BCS conference schools in Minnesota and Stanford, with each having different roads to get to the title game at Madison Square Garden.

The Cardinal, on the other hand, have had a relatively smoother road to New York. They hosted their first three games at Maples Pavilion in Palo Alto, defeating Cleveland State, Illinois State, and Nevada to advance to New York. Cleveland State was banged-up and depleted when they arrived at Stanford in the first round and the Cardinal barely escaped against Illinois State with a two-point overtime win. In the semifinals, they took care of business against a No. 5 seeded UMass team.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here. Be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

And, really, would anyone turn down a chance to see Lewis deliver a passionate pregame speech? Even if it’s for the NIT? I didn’t think so. Hit the jump for the superb video and a transcript of his speech.

If you’ll excuse me, there’s a brick wall nearby that needs runnin’ through.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here. Be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here. Be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

Minnesota, despite their mediocre overall and Big Ten record, have comfortably beaten three very good teams to get here, so it’s quite possible that Ross and Wroten could fail to win the hearts of Knicks and Celtics fans.

Game Date/Time: Tuesday, March 27, 9:00 p.m. ET

Stanford haven’t really faced a tough game against a top-quality opponent so far in this tournament. They went through a couple of average mid-majors in Cleveland State and Illinois State before crushing Nevada in the semifinal. UMass went 9-7 in the A-10 and is coming off a win over Drexel, so they’re likely to be Stanford’s biggest test thus far in the NIT.

Game Date/Time: Tuesday, March 27, 7:00 p.m. ET

The other college basketball tournament in March is wrapping up as well, as the NIT semifinals begin on Tuesday in Madison Square Garden.

Stanford faces Massachusetts in the first semifinal, a 7 p.m. game on ESPN.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here and be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

Minnesota’s Rodney Williams was huge all night until he began to undergo severe cramping in his right calf, forcing him to exit in the game’s final minute. Ultimately, Williams’ exit didn’t matter, as a crucial technical foul on the Blue Raiders with 7.2 seconds remaining salted this game away.

You can find a full NIT bracket here.

Middle Tennessee aren’t really a surprise at this stage; they were expected to win the Sun Belt Tournament and go to the NCAA Tournament. A surprise upset loss has sent them here, and they’re making the most of it. They have wins over UCLA, MAC regular-season champions Akron, Belmont and Ole Miss, as well as their NIT wins over Marshall and Tennessee, so it’s fair to call them slight favorites against Tubby Smith’s Gophers.

Nevada is in a similar situation, though they won’t be at home on Wednesday. However, Stanford was pushed to overtime by an Illinois State team whose pedigree doesn’t stack up to Nevada’s in the last round of the tournament.

UMass defeated Drexel 72-70, and the box score for the game is one of the oddest you’ll ever see. Drexel outrebounded UMass 36-20 and grabbed an unbelievable 20 offensive rebounds, but still found a way to lose. Massachusetts shot 59 percent from the field, while Drexel could only manage 42 percent and 1-13 from three-point range.

Washington’s win was a bit more straightforward. They were the better team for most of the second half and built up a nine-point lead. The Ducks cut into that margin, but UW held on for a 90-86 win. C.J. Wilcox was 6-6 from the free-throw line in the final minute to ice the game.

The game was close throughout, but Washington began to take control in the middle of the second half and led by as many as nine points. Oregon came back within two points with 47 seconds remaining, but C.J. Wilcox shot 6-6 from the free throw line in the final minute to ice the game.

You can find a full NIT bracket here.

You can find a full NIT bracket here.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here and be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

No. 1 Washington gets hosting duties against No. 3 Oregon, and the game will tip at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. It’s the second game of the night, following No. 5 Massachusetts visiting No. 3 Drexel.

Here’s the full schedule for Tuesday’s scintillating NIT Tournament play.

Stanford moves on to the NIT quarterfinals, where it will face Nevada on Wednesday.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here, and be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here, and be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

I should probably repeat that. The Volunteers didn’t score a point for the final seven minutes and 14 seconds of the game. This is after scoring 64 points in the first 33 minutes. Much of that can be attributed to the Blue Raiders’ defense, but something happened mentally for the Vols that turned the basket from its normal shape to the size of a thumbtack. They continued to shoot, and nothing would go down.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here, and be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

The NCAA Tournament is off until Thursday, but there’s some decent basketball to hold you over just in case you can’t get away from basketball for a day. The NIT Second Round resumes on Monday with three games. Five of the tournament’s quarterfinalists are already set and the remaining three will be determined on Monday.

Schedule

Former Duke forward Olek Czyz had a team-high 23-points, including 12 of his team’s first 18-points, to lead Nevada over Bucknell.

With the win, the Wolf Pack advance to the third-round of the NIT. Nevada advances to play the winner of Monday’s Illinois-Stanford game.

The Ducks somehow out-lasted the Hawkeyes despite 20 fewer field goal attempts. They made good on 59.3 percent of their 59 shot attempts, and made 10-of-23 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc. The Hawkeyes went 37-for-79 from the field, and 10-for-22 from long range. They held a 15-8 advantage on the offensive boards, giving them plenty of second chance opportunities despite their less-blistering shooting percentage. The Ducks made up for that discrepancy by going 28-for-32 at the free-throw line.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here and be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

For more on the NIT, be sure to check out our NCAA basketball hub. A full bracket can be found here and be sure to check out our 2012 NCAA Tournament hub for more on the Big Dance.

Though upsets in the NIT don’t quite carry the drama of, say, Lehigh over Duke or Norfolk State over Missouri, there have still been plenty of shockers in the National Invitational Tournament. In action on Sunday will be two No. 7 seeds and a No. 8 seeds that knocked out the one-and-two-seeds they played in the first round. These teams will try to keep their improbable runs alive when second round action continues Sunday.

Finally, the last of the trio of games at 5 p.m. (ET) on ESPNU will feature third-seeded Oregon out of the disaster that is the Pac-12 against Iowa, the seventh seed, which beat Dayton in the first round. Oregon has had an up-and-down season and Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery (formerly of Siena) would love to see that take a turn for the latter. Here’s the full bracket: