NIT 2017: Predicting Winner and Final Score for Championship Game

TCU and Georgia Tech's college basketball teams will square off in the men's National Invitational Tournament championship game on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET. ESPN will televise the game at Madison Square Garden, New York City, and it can also be live-streamed on WatchESPN.

Here's a brief look at some notable points about each team before a prediction of the winner and final score at the end.

TCU

The Horned Frogs can win in numerous ways. They can take low-scoring slugfests, as the Horned Frogs did in a 68-53 win over a stout defensive team in Central Florida, and they can win shootouts, as they did in a 94-92 overtime victory over Iowa in Iowa City.

TCU is ranked 34th in the KenPom.com rankings, as it is solid on offense (38th) and defense (54th), and that's thanks in part to Kenrich Williams.

The junior guard is doing his best Russell Westbrook impersonation right now, as he's posted 13.3 points, 12.0 boards and 6.0 assists per game in the NIT.

Williams registered a triple-double in the quarterfinals against Richmond and nearly did the same against UCF and Iowa, falling three and four assists short, respectively.

Most impressively, Williams is posting these gaudy numbers while remaining efficient and careful with the basketball. He has made 21 of 37 field goals for a 56.8 field-goal percentage and has only committed five turnovers for the entire NIT.

He will need another virtuoso performance against Georgia Tech, which is firing on all cylinders in the NIT.

Georgia Tech

Aside from a few clunkers this year, namely a 110-57 loss to Duke, the Yellow Jackets' defense has been fantastic. It ranked sixth in adjusted defensive efficiency behind five teams who are either currently in the Final Four (Gonzaga and South Carolina) or had top-five seeds in the NCAA tournament (Virginia, West Virginia, Florida), per KenPom.com.

The Yellow Jackets have only allowed an average of 61.8 points in four NIT games thus far, with a 12.3-point average margin of victory. 

Junior center Ben Lammers leads the defense with 3.4 blocks per game, but four Yellow Jackets average one steal or more as well.

On the flip side, three-point shooting has been Georgia Tech's Achilles' heel all season, as it only makes 32.8 percent of its threes (to put that number in perspective, the Yellow Jackets rank 276th out of 351 Division I teams in that category).

That cold shooting has continued into the tournament, as the Yellow Jackets have shot 32.3 percent during the NIT.

The Winner and Final Score

This game could go either way. Williams could take over the game and lead TCU to victory, and Georgia Tech could stymie the entire TCU offense and win a low-scoring affair.

Although it's hard to see the Yellow Jackets (or any team) shutting down Williams, expect their defense to overwhelm TCU's offense tomorrow. Lammers is a dominant force down low, and it's unlikely anyone on TCU can stop him.

Final Score: Georgia Tech 67, TCU 61