NIT Season Tip-Off
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The NIT Season Tip-Off is an annual college basketball tournament that takes place in November of each year, around the beginning of the season. The first two rounds are held at campus sites and the semifinals and the finals are held at Madison Square Garden. The tournament began in 1985 as the Preseason NIT, so called to distinguish it from the post-season NIT. In 2005, the NCAA purchased the Men's Preseason and Postseason NIT and renamed the November tournament the NIT Season Tip-Off. The tournament remains one of the most well-known preseason tournaments, along with the Maui Invitational.
The tournament had a new format in 2006 [1]. The first two rounds were held at regional "common sites" instead of campus sites, making the format more like the postseason NCAA Tournament. The semifinals and finals were still held at Madison Square Garden. In 2006, the common sites were Charlotte, N.C., Nashville, Tenn., Indianapolis and Spokane, Wash.
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[edit] Past Championship Games
- 1985 - Duke 92, Kansas 86
- 1986 - UNLV 96, Western Kentucky 95 (2 OT)
- 1987 - Florida 70, Seton Hall 68
- 1988 - Syracuse 86, Missouri 84 (OT)
- 1989 - Kansas 66, St. John's 57
- 1990 - Arizona 89, Arkansas 77
- 1991 - Oklahoma State 78, Georgia Tech 71
- 1992 - Indiana 78, Seton Hall 74
- 1993 - Kansas 86, Massachusetts 75
- 1994 - Ohio 84, New Mexico State 80 (OT)
- 1995 - Arizona 81, Georgetown 71
- 1996 - Indiana 85, Duke 69
- 1997 - Kansas 73, Florida State 58
- 1998 - North Carolina 57, Stanford 49
- 1999 - Arizona 63, Kentucky 51
- 2000 - Duke 63, Temple 60
- 2001 - Syracuse 74, Wake Forest 67
- 2002 - North Carolina 74, Stanford 57
- 2003 - Georgia Tech 85, Texas Tech 65
- 2004 - Wake Forest 63, Arizona 60
- 2005 - Duke 70, Memphis 67
- 2006 - Butler 79, Gonzaga 71
[edit] 2006
- Baylor
- Belmont
- Butler
- Colorado State
- Fordham
- Gonzaga
- Indiana
- Iona
- Lafayette
- North Carolina
- UNC-Wilmington
- Notre Dame
- Rice
- Sacred Heart
- Tennessee
- Winthrop
[edit] Trivia
- Allen Iverson (now of the Denver Nuggets) was the series MVP in 1995, playing for Georgetown.
- Butler University's 2006 NIT championship game final score was the same final score as their previous most historic win: a 79-71 victory over #14 Louisville in the second round of the 2003 NCAA Tournament. The win over Rick Pitino's Cardinal's, which included All-American Reece Gaines, propelled the Bulldogs to their first-ever Sweet Sixteen.
- Butler's championship in the 2006 tournament was named one of the top 12 "underdog" sports stories of 2006 by ESPN. [2]
