Update, 10:50 p.m. ET: In an inauspicious start to the first-ever WBIT, the tournament has been delegitimized before it even began. The WBIT initially listed Miami as a No. 1 seed, but the Hurricanes decided to opt out of the tournament.
Rather than move things around to readjust following Miami’s decision, the WBIT simply replaced Miami’s No. 1 seed with James Madison — a team that had not been invited to the tournament in any capacity before Miami dropped out. JMU has skyrocketed from no invitation to a No. 1 seed, making a complete farce of the tournament’s layout.
After the full 68-team field for the NCAA Tournament is revealed Sunday evening, women’s basketball teams that do not qualify for March Madness will hope to earn an invitation to one of two tournaments. The WBIT (Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament) will invite 32 teams, and the WNIT (Women’s National Invitational Tournament) will extend 48 bids.
The WBIT is a brand-new event in 2024, and is wholly owned by the NCAA just as they own the NIT for men’s basketball after a forced sale under pressure from federal courts in 2005. But the NCAA continues to not own the rights to the WNIT, so they created an alternative postseason invitational tournament which they’ll own fully and will be able to keep all the revenue.
The NCAA claims this “ensures the NCAA is providing equitable postseason opportunities for women’s basketball similar to that of men’s basketball,” and the fact no one else will keep the money as TV ratings for women’s basketball continue to skyrocket is just a coincidence. Also the WNIT, an event with a history dating back to 1969, isn’t mentioned at all in any NCAA official materials.
The WBIT will effectively replace the WNIT as the secondary tournament for teams who miss the cut in the NCAA Tournament. The WBIT will be broadcast on ESPN, and the WNIT will wait until the lineup for the WBIT is announced before announcing their own field, effectively placing them in a tertiary position among the postseason tournaments.
The early rounds of the WBIT will take place at the campus sites of higher seeds, and the semifinal and final rounds will be played at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, home of the Butler Bulldogs and the NCAA’s corporate offices.
The men’s NIT semifinals and finals will also take place at Hinkle. This year the Women’s Final Four will take place in Cleveland, Ohio, while the Men’s Final Four is in Glendale, Arizona.
