Oklahoma, Baylor, West Virginia and Stanford are among the eight teams that will participate in the College Basketball Crown, the second edition of Fox’s made-for-TV postseason tournament.
The field for the Crown — which competes for teams with the NIT, the longtime NCAA-alternative tournament — was selected Monday. The event is scheduled to be played April 1-5 in Las Vegas.
The Crown quarterfinals will be played April 1-2 at the MGM Grand and match Oklahoma (19-15) of the SEC against Colorado (17-15) of the Big 12 and Baylor (16-16) of the Big 12 against Minnesota (15-17) of the Big Ten on April 1. The other quarterfinals have West Virginia (18-14) of the Big 12 facing Stanford (20-12) of the ACC and Rutgers (14-19) out of the Big Ten against Creighton (15-17) from the Big East.
Two semifinals will be played April 4, the day of the NCAA men’s Final Four, with a title game the next day. Teams that advance in the Crown earn name, image and likeness money for their players. Nebraska received $300,000 in NIL for winning the Crown last year, and runner-up UCF received $100,000.
Overall, the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12 accounted for 35 combined NCAA Tournament bids, with each conference getting at least eight teams in the field of 68. After some other NCAA bubble teams opted out of the postseason, that left few particularly appealing options for the NIT and Crown.
The NIT announced its 32-team field Sunday night, featuring just four teams from power conferences, with Auburn from the SEC as the top seed.
“I’m here to coach basketball. The guys on my roster are here to play basketball, and we’re all here to compete,” Auburn coach Steven Pearl told reporters on Monday. “I’m not going to take my ball and go home because we didn’t make the tournament. So, I just see it as an unbelievable opportunity for our guys to go out there and just compete on a stage.”
Wake Forest from the ACC was also a No. 1 seed. Cal from the ACC and Oklahoma State from the Big 12 were the other power conference schools to accept NIT bids.
Several other big name schools did not, including Indiana from the Big Ten, Seton Hall from the Big East, Virginia Tech and Florida State from the ACC and perennial Mountain West contender San Diego State. The Aztecs failed to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019.
Five Mountain West teams did accept bids to the NIT after the conference received only one bid to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017.
The Atlantic 10 is also sending five teams to the NIT.
Belmont was another notable postseason opt-out after the Bruins finished 26-6 to earn the top seed in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. The Bruins lost in their first game of that tournament, and head coach Casey Alexander has accepted the Kansas State job.
The NIT guarantees spots for teams that won their regular-season conference titles but did not earn NCAA bids through their league tournaments. Navy, Utah Valley and UNC Wilmington were among the qualifiers for the NIT that did accept bids.