NIT moving entirely to Texas
Semis and final out of New York for first time
The NIT is moving the entire 2021 event to Texas, taking the semifinals and championship out of New York’s Madison Square Garden for the first time in the 83-year history of college basketball’s oldest postseason tournament.
The pandemic also is reducing the field to 16 teams from the usual 32, and all games are set for the Dallas area. The two venues are the University of North Texas in Denton and an arena in Frisco that is home to a G League team affiliated with the Dallas Mavericks.
First-round games will be played March 17-20, with the quarterfinals March 25. The semifinals are set for March 27, followed by the championship the next day. The field for the NIT will be announced after the NCAA tournament is set March 14.
The NIT champion has been crowned in New York every year since the tournament started in 1938. Earlier rounds usually are held at the venues of designated home teams.
The 2020 cancellation because of COVID-19 was the first in the event’s history. The Texas Longhorns won the most recent NIT in 2019 when it defeated Lipscomb.
Florida State
The No. 11-ranked Seminoles extended coach Leonard Hamilton’s contract through the 2024-25 season. The deal is set to keep Hamilton on the FSU sideline until he is 76 years old. It will pay about $562,500 for the remainder of this season and then about $2.3 million for each of the next four seasons.
Nebraska
Teddy Allen, the Cornhuskers scoring leader who set the Pinnacle Bank Arena scoring record less than a week ago, left the team. Nebraska was Allen’s third Division I program in a mercurial career on and off the court. Coach Fred Hoiberg mentioned last week that Allen had been bothered by a wrist issue.
“After a lot of thought over the last few days, I have made the decision to focus on getting fully healthy in preparation for the next step in my basketball journey,” Allen said.
Allen began his career at West Virginia and was there for one season, transferring to Wichita State in 2018. He sat out the next season per transfer rules and never played a game for the Shockers. He was kicked off the team in June 2019 after he was arrested in connection with a disturbance with his girlfriend. Allen moved on to Western Nebraska Community College, where he was the national junior college scoring leader in 2019-20, and then joined Hoiberg’s team in Lincoln.
Louisville
Forward/center Malik Williams (6 fett 11) will miss four to six weeks after reinjuring his right foot in just his third game after returning from nearly a year away because of injury. Williams won’t require additional surgery for the third injury to the foot since September 2019.
Elsewhere
Albany men’s coach Will Brown is out after two decades. Brown said in a news release that he and the school agreed “to mutually part ways.” The 2020-21 season was the final year of his contract extension. ... Rodney Billups is done as men’s coach at Denver after five seasons. He finished 48-94 at the school where he once was a standout player.