A little bracketology, NIT-style

Until today, the NIT had suffered a rash of bubble-busting that could hurt Arizona's chances to get in the 32-team field. Eight teams have earned automatic bids via winning their regular-season conference title and then failing to earn  an NCAA bid (this, of course, is pretty much the low-major schools whose RPIs are so high that they have no shot at the NCAA tournament if they don't win their conference tournament)...

But today,  lo and  behold, a bunch of "potential bid-stealers" (what NITology.com called them) won their conference tournaments, teams such as UC Santa Barbara (Big West) and Morgan State (MEAC) who had won their conference titles but would fall down to the NIT if they didn't also win their conference tournaments.

You were rooting for Morgan State over South Carolina State, weren't you?

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Anyway, NITology.com still has Arizona barely getting one of the 24 remaining at-large bids, but the Bracket Project does not have them in. I have no idea how accurate these predictions are, but NITology says it picked 31 of the 32 teams last season.

In any case, you can get a pretty good idea that UA is, indeed, on the NIT bubble by comparing their RPIs, Sagarin ratings and Kenpom.com schedule strength and  other numbers.

In fact, if you really are catching NIT fever, you, too, can make your own predictions.

I'm kidding. But here are the NIT's blank brackets anyway, complete with dates.

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Care for even more NIT minutiae? Here's their official selection guidelines.

The NIT's official site, NIT.org, is well-organized with history and facts about both of its preseason and postseason events.

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If Arizona does get in, it appears most likely to be a No. 6 or No. 7 seed, the No. 8s being those automatic qualifiers from low-major conferences. This means the Wildcats would open on the road at a No. 2 or No. 3 seed, again if they get in.

They would only play at home if their higher-seeded opponent cannot host the game for some reason (or if an early round upset means UA is facing a lower-seeded team somehow). Unlike the College Basketball Invitational, teams do not have to guarantee funds to host games -- NIT officials say it's strictly based on seeding.

Winners of each eight-team bracket advance to Madison Square Garden for the semifinals.

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It wouldn't be a complete surprise to see the Wildcats matched up against Josh Pastner's team, or at least in Memphis' bracket, if the Tigers get a No. 1 seed. The NIT rules stipulate that the second team from a conference must be placed in a different region, so the Wildcats would most likely be sent to a non-Western region that ASU would most likely be placed in (assuming the Sun Devils don't get a surprise NCAA bid).

But Pastner and the Tigers are still holding out hope for an NCAA bid.

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Meanwhile, Oregon State's Craig Robinson says his Beavers would be interested in defending their CBI title, even though UA has already told the CBI it is not interested.

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And, when San Diego State won the Mountain West tourney tonight, it brought to mind Sean Miller's postgame remark in San Diego three months ago: "They were the bigger, stronger, nastier, deeper and more athletic team."