Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament Explained

Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament should not be confused with Women's Basketball Invitational.

Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament
Current Season:2024 Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament
Sport:Basketball
Founded:2024
Inaugural:2024
Teams:32
Champion:Illinois
Most Champs:Illinois (1)
Tv:ESPN+/ESPN2/ESPNU
Related Comps:NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament
Women's National Invitation Tournament
Women's Basketball Invitational
Founder:NCAA

The Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT) is a women's national college basketball tournament inaugurated in 2024. It is operated in a similar fashion to the men's college National Invitation Tournament (NIT) and is run by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The similarly-titled Women's National Invitation Tournament (WNIT) is unaffiliated with the NCAA.

Format

The NCAA announced the creation of the WBIT on July 17, 2023, with the first edition to be held in 2024.[1] The WBIT supplies an additional 32 funded opportunities for postseason play, providing gender parity to men's college basketball, which has the NCAA-owned NIT.[2] The existing non-NCAA postseason tournaments, the Women's National Invitation Tournament and Women's Basketball Invitational, are "pay-to-play" events where teams must pay a fee to the event sponsor, in addition to travel costs.[3]

The "first four out" of the NCAA tournament will be the top four seeds of the WBIT. All regular season champions who were not otherwise invited to the NCAA tournament, and are eligible for NCAA-sponsored postseason play, are automatically selected for the WBIT, similar to the rule in the men's NIT prior to 2024. The top eight schools host first and second-round games. Only the top 16 teams are seeded, with the remaining 16 teams placed as close to their schools as possible. Unlike the NCAA tournament, geographical considerations for each team on a given seed line are considered, so that the No. 2 seeds are placed as close to the No. 1 seeds, and so forth.[4] The higher seeded school will be able to have home court advantage until the final four round, which is held at a designated site. In 2024, this site was Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, which also hosted the semifinals and final of the 2024 men's NIT.

See also

Notes and References

  1. NCAA announces creation of Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament . NCAA . July 17, 2023 . July 28, 2023.
  2. Web site: Merchant . Sabreena . NCAA announces Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament . 2024-03-18 . The Athletic . en.
  3. Web site: Murray . Chris . 2022-03-22 . Here's how much Nevada women's basketball paid to play in the WBI . 2024-03-18 . Nevada Sports Net . en.
  4. Web site: 2024-03-17 . WOMEN'S BASKETBALL INVITATION TOURNAMENT (WBIT) PRINCIPLES AND PROCEDURES FOR ESTABLISHING THE BRACKET . NCAA.