Marquette Gets A #2 Seed In The 2018 NIT

Well, okay then.

As we touched on over in our NCAA Selection Show preview article, Marquette‘s chances of earning an at-large bid are looking kind of shaky. Bracket Matrix last updated on Saturday at 9pm, which means it’s probably getting all of Friday’s results worked in but none of Saturday’s, and Marquette appears in just nine of the 140 brackets. That has the Golden Eagles as the sixth team out. Joe Lunardi’s most recent bracket is dated today and says that the Golden Eagles are the seventh team out. Chris Dobbertean, who was bullish on the Golden Eagles about a week ago, says that they’re the fourth team out as of 5:30pm last night. T-Rank’s bracketology calculations has Marquette as the third team out with a 45% chance of making it into the field.

With all of that evidence mounting, we have to be prepared to tune in for the National Invitation Tournament Selection Show a little later on in the evening on Sunday. 12 of the 32 spots in the NIT have already been occupied by regular season champions who did not earn their league’s automatic bid through their tournaments. That’s a pretty decent amount of spots being taken up, although that number may still be only 11 as I’m counting Middle Tennessee State as part of the 12. The Blue Raiders may actually earn an at-large bid to the Big Dance, so the actual number of NIT automatic bid teams is still up in the air a little bit.

It doesn’t matter for us Marquette fans, though, at least I don’t think it will. Bracket Matrix is currently projecting the Golden Eagles as a #1 seed in the NIT, although that hasn’t been updated since March 9th. NYC Buckets also slots Marquette in as a #1 seed, and somewhat strangely, also slots the Golden Eagles against Wagner in the first round. If that mostly holds up, that will keep MU well away from the cutline down around the #6 seed area or so. If those #1 seed projections come to pass, or even if Marquette lands as a #2 or a #3 or a #4 seed in the NIT, the athletic department has already announced that any home games that go Marquette’s direction in the NIT will be played at the Al McGuire Center on campus and not at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. This is a pretty genius decision as the first round, perhaps both of the first two rounds will happen before the students return from Spring Break next week. Plus, y’know, easier to sell 3,000 tickets on short notice than it is to sell 12,000.

2018 National Invitation Tournament Selection Show

Date: Sunday, March 11, 2018
Time: 7:30pm Central
Television: ESPNU
Streaming: WatchESPN