Auburn basketball should be proud of NIT triumph
By David Wasson
Published:
The standard hope for all college basketball players, coaches and fans is to win a game in April. Because if you’ve done that, well, you’ve done something.
April, after all, is when the long and winding road of March Madness culminates for a quartet of fortunate programs in the Final Four – with one team ending up cutting down the nets and watching itself triumph during the final notes of “One Shining Moment.”
Only one team in the NCAA Tournament gets to finish its season with a victory, of course. But there is more than one team that finished off its season as the April began and also claimed a very important* trophy.
The Auburn Tigers.
The asterisk behind “very important” right there is the question at hand right now: just how valuable, how important, is Auburn’s win the National Invitation Tournament?
Ask that question 70 years or so ago, of course, and you get a decidedly different answer. The NIT used to be the tournament to win in college basketball, after all, as the combination of limited national media coverage of games outside of New York City and the tournament’s more burnished reputation mean the NIT champ was often held in higher regard than the NCAA champ.
All that started changing in the 60s and 70s, though, as the NCAA Tournament kept expanding and the combination of the NCAA eliminating the one-team-per-conference rule in 1975 along with the requirement that teams accept its bids soon relegated the NIT to a collection of teams that did not make the NCAA grade.
That brings us to 2026 and the Auburn Tigers. There was a minor kerfuffle, as there seems to be every year, whenever the NCAA Tournament bracket is announced and whomever the “First Four Out” are identified. This time around, it was Auburn – a team that sported high-profile victories against SEC regular-season champion Florida as well as Big East Tournament champ St. John’s on its ledger… but also had a ledger that read 17-16 come Selection Sunday.
Due to a confluence of events that included Miami (OH) chosen as an at-large team, Auburn – despite the third-best strength of schedule in the country – was left with nothing. Nothing, that is, until the NIT called later that night.
Sure, first-year coach Steven Pearl could have turned down the NIT bid like some teams have done, but Pearl and the Tigers instead leaned into the opportunity. Well, most of the Tigers… as starting forward KeShawn Murphy decided to take his proverbial ball and go home and call it a career instead of toiling with his teammates for the duration of the second-rate NIT.
Murphy’s opt-out could have sunk Auburn’s chances right out of the gate, but instead it galvanized the Tigers – who powered past South Alabama, Seattle U and Nevada in NIT games at Neville Arena, smacked around Illinois State in the NIT semifinal at Hinkle Fieldhouse and then earned a gritty 92-86 overtime victory over Tulsa in Sunday’s NIT championship game.
That win – Auburn’s first NIT title – was rightfully celebrated by the Tigers on Sunday night in Gainbridge Fieldhourse, where the NBA’s Indiana Pacers play.
Pearl also will undoubtedly benefit from his team’s 5-game run to an NIT banner. Coaching a team to wins in April, any wins in April, delivers quite a bit of positive exposure on the eve of the college basketball transfer window opening – and Auburn is poised to capitalize on that exposure to level up through the portal for 2026-27.
Like it or not, Auburn turned a resounding negative into a resounding positive with its NIT experience. Not only did it send off a senior like Keshawn Hall on a great note, but it poised Pearl in the best way possible to replace Tahaad Pettiford should the sophomore opt for the portal.
Auburn’s NIT triumph was also a not-so-insignificant “we told you” nod-wink to the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee as well as its conferees in the SEC. The Tigers kept right on playing very good basketball despite missing one of their starters and ended up hoisting a trophy amid falling confetti.
Would Auburn rather have punched its March Madness dance card instead of settling for the more winding road to a championship win in April? Sure. But wins are wins are wins, and Auburn deserves all the kudos for running the NIT table.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
