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Hinkle Fieldhouse to host 2024 NIT semifinals, championship

College basketball’s National Invitation Tournament is coming to Hinkle Fieldhouse in 2024.

Semifinal and championship games will be April 2 and 4 at home of the Butler Bulldogs. The NIT will continue to have a 32-team field, playing first-round, second-round and quarterfinal games at campus sites.

The 2023 NIT will be in Las Vegas, hosted by UNLV.

Hinkle will thus be home to a national tournament for the second time in four seasons. The venue, for the first time since 1940, was site of games during the 2021 NCAA tournament.

The NIT, when founded in 1938, was the sport’s premier postseason tournament. It was played at New York’s Madison Square Garden until 2021, when all games were at Denton and Frisco, Texas. Starting this season, MSG will no longer hold any of the games.

Eventually, the NIT was surpassed in prestige by the NCAA tournament, which now includes 68 teams. The NIT is for teams not selected for the NCAA tourney.

This season, for the second time, the NIT will seed the top 16 teams and place the remaining 16 into the bracket geographically.

The 2023 NIT will be the 86th. Selections and pairings will be announced March 12 for a tourney opening March 14.

Elsewhere, former coaches Rick Byrd, Bob McKillop and Gary Waters were selected to the NIT committee. The chair is Wren Baker, director of athletics at North Texas.

Contact IndyStar reporter David Woods at david.woods@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: NCAA basketball: 2024 NIT final, semis coming to Hinkle FIeldhouse