NIT 2023: Complete Bracket, First-Round Schedule and Men's Teams to Watch

The 2023 NIT field is full of programs that are typically involved in the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

The Oklahoma State Cowboys, Oregon Ducks, Michigan Wolverines, Wisconsin Badgers and Villanova Wildcats are all fixtures of March Madness, but they will have to settle for chasing the NIT title.

Those name-brand college basketball schools will get plenty of attention, but the 32-team tournament could be dominated by the in-form sides and mid-major squads.

Jerry Stackhouse's Vanderbilt Commodores made a late push to reach the Big Dance with 10 wins in 12 games.

Vanderbilt could be viewed as one of the favorites to win the event because of those results. Many of the top names in the tournament struggled at the end of the season.

The first round takes place Tuesday and Wednesday. The first three rounds take place on campus sites. The semifinals and final will be held at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.

---

NIT Bracket

Teams to Watch

Vanderbilt

Vanderbilt's late NCAA tournament push came up just short.

The Commodores had to settle for a NIT berth despite beating the Kentucky Wildcats twice and the Tennessee Volunteers during their 10-2 stretch.

Vanderbilt has not had a chance to win many things in college basketball, so Stackhouse's team should embrace the run toward Las Vegas.

Some teams may not approach the NIT with the right motivation because their seasons ended in bad fashion or they are disappointed from not reaching the NCAA tournament.

Vanderbilt is in the perfect part of the bracket to take over since Clemson and Michigan were both wildly inconsistent.

Clemson started 18-4 and then stumbled to the finish line at 23-10 with two of the losses coming against two of the worst teams in the ACC. Clemson's only impressive wins during that stretch were two blowouts over the NC State Wolfpack.

Michigan only scored 50 points with its NCAA tournament life on the line in the Big Ten quarterfinals. The Wolverines enter the NIT on a three-game losing streak.

Vanderbilt could beat the two underwhelming teams and land itself a berth in the NIT Final Four.

A NIT championship would be viewed as a massive success for a program that has just two NCAA tournament berths in the last decade.

---

Liberty

The Liberty Flames might be the most dangerous team in the NIT bracket.

The Flames have one of the best scorers in college basketball in Darius McGhee and should carry the motivation to beat some big names on their path to Las Vegas.

Liberty earned the rare honor of hosting a team of Villanova's caliber in the first round. Wisconsin would likely be the second-round opponent.

Liberty has not attracted many power-conference schools to Lynchburg, Virginia, in recent years because a true road game would not make sense for many of those programs.

Ritchie McKay's team did not lose at Liberty Arena all season, albeit against much easier competition than Villanova, but it can use that advantage to get through to the second round.

Oregon and the Florida Gators reside on the other side of Liberty's bracket, so it could knock off a handful of power-conference schools on its way to Vegas.

Liberty is capable of beating all of those teams, and if it had not lost to the Kennesaw State Owls in the Atlantic Sun tournament final, we might have been talking about the Flames as one of the top Cinderella teams in March Madness.

The Flames will have to settle for upsetting Power Five squads in the NIT, and if they take the tournament seriously, they could breeze past some of those inconsistent squads in their bracket.