List of teams with an automatic bid to the 2022 NIT Tournament

While winning the conference tournament and securing an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament is the goal of every team in March, sometimes the one-off format doesn’t go the way of the favorite and they are left without a bid to The Big Dance.

Fortunately as of 2017, the regular season champion of all 32 Division I conferences has the opportunity to still play in the postseason. The NIT is now owned directly by the NCAA, and offers an automatic bid to all teams that win the conference regular season crown.

Below we’ve listed the No. 1 seeds in conference tournaments that have been eliminated and will thus be offered a chance to play in the NIT. For teams where the regular season champion is absolutely assured a bid to the NCAA Tournament due to their record being easily worthy of an At-Large selection, we’ve notated that as well.

Automatic bids to 2022 NIT

Atlantic Sun: Jacksonville State
Big West: Long Beach State
CAA: Towson
Conference USA: North Texas
Ivy: Princeton
Missouri Valley: Northern Iowa
Sun Belt: Texas State
Horizon League: Cleveland State
MAAC: Iona
MAC: Toledo
Southland: Nicholls
SWAC: Alcorn State

Regular season conference champions

American: Houston/NCAA At-Large
ACC: Duke/NCAA At-Large
America East: Vermont/NCAA Automatic
Atlantic 10: Davidson/NCAA At-Large
Big 12: Kansas/NCAA At-Large
Big East: Providence/NCAA At-Large
Big Sky: Montana State/NCAA Automatic
Big South: Longwood/NCAA Automatic
Big Ten: Illinois/NCAA At-Large
MEAC: Norfolk State/NCAA Automatic
Mountain West: Boise State/NCAA Automatic
Northeast: Bryant/NCAA Automatic
Ohio Valley: Murray State/NCAA Automatic
Pac-12: Arizona/NCAA At-Large
Patriot: Colgate/NCAA Automatic
SEC: Auburn/NCAA At-Large
Southern: Chattanooga/NCAA Automatic
Summit: South Dakota State/NCAA Automatic
WAC: New Mexico State/NCAA Automatic
WCC: Gonzaga/NCAA At-Large