NIT bracket announced: California, Illinois State, Iowa and Syracuse earn top seeds

Tech is in the Syracuse quadrant along with Georgia (19-14) and Belmont (22-6), which won the regular-season title in the Ohio Valley Conference.

“We’ll be well-rested”, Pastner said. “Those main guys will be ready to get it done”. The Yellow Jackets have the seventh most efficient defense in the nation per KenPom and do a great job of defending around the rim.

Brackets are being filled out all over the country this week for the NCAA tournament by diehard college basketball fans and those who wouldn’t know UCLA’s Lonzo Ball from Wisconsin’s former Heisman Trophy finalist Montee Ball.

Bona had a case for the NIT by being a 20-win A-10 team and finishing fifth in the conference, which in most years is enough to earn the invite. Indiana’s offense rarely has traveled well this season, and I don’t see that boding well against a team that was capable of defeating UNC, Notre Dame and Florida State at home. The NIT is a too-familiar postseason landing for each team, but it’s a big disappointment for Georgia while the Yellow Jackets surpassed expectations.

Will Tom Crean be the next head coach to be pushed out of the Big Ten?

Not long after finding out his opponent, Turner was asked if he was surprised to have to play a No. 1 seed in the first round.

“We lost three home games we should have won: Virginia, Arizona and OR, and you don’t lose home games”, Martin said. “But you can’t look back on them now, the results are the results”.

IN has a Georgia connection in Freddie McSwain Jr. from Hinesville. The thought was that perhaps the NIT selection committee would pit the Bonnies and the Orange in a first-round matchup, as it had done after the 2001-’02 season.

That success was built primarily on the shoulders of 6-10 junior center Ben Lammers, the 2017 ACC defensive player of the year. He averages 15.5 points. The Yellow Jackets beat Houston and SC before losing at San Diego State. They lost in the final in 1971.

Sam Beishuizen: Georgia Tech 71, IN 69 – Georgia Tech actually wants to play IN this game.

That’s the same Belmont team that Georgia beat in a first round NIT game a year ago in Athens 93-84.

The game against Belmont is a rematch. It’s not the big business of NCAA bracketology and when you add its dependence on who makes the NCAA, the art of projecting the field is much less accurate.

Many can point fingers at the head coach of the team for the downward spiral of this season. This is similar to the way the National Basketball Association is governed and does away with the one-and-one free throws.

While it may not hold the same clout as the other two postseason tournaments, the CBI should deliver some great action throughout the rest of March. Instead, the shot clock will remain the same or reset to 20 seconds, whichever is greater.