SMU, Dayton, UC Irvine and San Francisco are the No. 1 seeds in the 2025 National Invitation Tournament, organizers revealed Sunday night. Only four of the 32 teams in the field -- SMU, Stanford, Georgia Tech and Oklahoma State -- hail from one of the five power conferences, marking a potentially sharp decline in quality for the traditional second-tier tournament. The programs that declined tournament invites included Indiana, Northwestern, Rutgers, Wake Forest, Pitt, LSU and South Carolina. Indiana was among the first four teams out of the NCAA Tournament field. For contrast, LSU (3-15 in Southeastern Conference play) and South Carolina (2-16) were the only two SEC teams out of 16 to miss the NCAA Tournament.
SMU, Dayton among top seeds in NIT as teams decline bids
