The College Basketball Crown: A New Era in Postseason Play
The landscape of college basketball postseason tournaments is undergoing a significant shift with the introduction of the College Basketball Crown (CBC). Founded in 2024 by Anschutz Entertainment Group and Fox Sports, the CBC is an American men's college basketball tournament that debuted in 2025. It offers a fresh opportunity for teams that did not qualify for the NCAA tournament to extend their season and compete for a national title.
Tournament Overview
The inaugural College Basketball Crown took place in Las Vegas from Monday, March 31 to Sunday, April 6, 2025. Games were held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and the T-Mobile Arena, both venues with experience hosting college basketball events, including the Pac-12 Conference men’s basketball tournament. The tournament is broadcast on FOX and FS1, ensuring national coverage for fans.
Participating Teams and Selection Process
The College Basketball Crown is a 16-team tournament. Two automatic qualifiers are selected from each of the Big East Conference, Big Ten Conference, and Big 12 Conference. The remaining ten teams are chosen as at-large selections from the pool of teams that did not qualify for the NCAA tournament.
For the 2025 tournament, the 16 teams participating were Washington State, Georgetown, Boise State, George Washington, Oregon State, Villanova, USC, Arizona State, Cincinnati, DePaul, Butler, Nebraska, UCF, Colorado, Utah, and Tulane.
While the official announcement of the tournament provided no specific details regarding selection criteria, a September 2023 proposal suggested that NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings would be used to select teams, initially focusing on Big East, Big Ten, and Big 12 squads. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark confirmed that the top two Big 12 teams who don’t make the NCAA Tournament will earn automatic selections for the College Basketball Crown field.
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The CBC's Impact on the NIT
The emergence of the College Basketball Crown has significantly impacted the National Invitation Tournament (NIT). The NCAA does not allow schools invited to an NCAA championship tournament to decline participation and then compete in another postseason event. However, this rule does not apply to the NIT, a secondary post-season competition administered by the NCAA.
In response to attempts to launch the CBC during the 2024 season, the NCAA changed its NIT selection process, introducing automatic bids for teams from high-major conferences while eliminating the automatic bids formerly reserved for teams who won their conference's regular-season title but lost their conference tournament (usually mid-major teams). Ahead of the 2025 NIT, the NCAA revoked the two automatic bids previously given to the Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 (the conferences committed to participate in the CBC), leaving two automatic bids only for the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and Southeastern Conference (SEC). The NIT also guaranteed one bid to each of the twelve conferences other than the ACC and SEC with the highest KenPom rating.
This shift has given the NIT a more defined mid-major vibe. If the top two non-NCAA tournament teams from each of the Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 are all committed to play in the CBC, and those three conferences all rank (according to KenPom) in the top twelve conferences, the NIT would be unable to get a team better than the third best non-NCAA tournament team from each of those three leagues.
Tickets and Broadcast Information
Vivid Seats is the Official Ticketing Provider of the College Basketball Crown. The tournament is broadcast on FOX and FS1, ensuring fans across the country can catch all the action.
Potential Challenges and Considerations
With the College Basketball Crown event taking place at the end of March and early April, teams may need to consider roster implications due to the timing of the NCAA’s basketball transfer portal window, which opens March 24 and stays open through April 22.
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