After ACC loss, Georgia Tech could continue season in a postseason tournament

Tech has a few options if it wants to keep playing this month: The National Invitation Tournament and the College Basketball Crown.

The NIT is a 32-team tournament that begins either Tuesday or Wednesday at campus sites. That tournament runs through April 3 with semifinals and finals being played at Hinkle Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis.

The College Basketball Crown tournament runs March 31-April 6 and is played exclusively in Las Vegas. Sixteen teams will play every other day in a conference tournament-esque format. The first two rounds are scheduled to be played at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, and the semifinals and the finals are scheduled to be played at T-Mobile Arena.

This year’s NIT will give bids to 16 exempt teams, which includes two teams from the ACC and SEC, as well as teams who won their respective regular-season conference titles. The top team not selected to the NCAA Tournament from the top 12 conferences (based on the Ken Pomeroy Rating) will receive an exempt bid to the NIT. All teams receiving an exempt bid are guaranteed the opportunity to host a first-round game.

The top teams from each conference will be determined based on the average of the teams’ ESPN Basketball Power Index (BPI), Kevin Pauga Index (KPI), NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), Ken Pomeroy Rating (KenPom), Strength of Record (SOR), Torvik ranking and Wins Above Bubble (WAB) ranking.

The bracket and pairings for the NIT will be announced Sunday.

Tech is 14-9 in its history playing in the NIT and last played in the event in 2017, when it reached the championship and lost to TCU in Madison Square Garden in New York.

The Jackets, with an NCAA NET ranking of 111 before Thursday’s loss, sit at 17-16. They finished 10-10 in the ACC and went 3-8 against Quadrant 1 opponents. They played the final two months of the season using a lineup of mostly 6-7 players because of long-term injuries to guards Kowacie Reeves and Javian McCollum and forward Luke O’Brien. Freshman center Doryan Onwuchekwa played his final game for Tech in December and reportedly made the decision to transfer.

Tech’s main contributors down the stretch this season could return for the 2025-26 season. Point guard Naithan George and center Baye Ndongo are sophomores, guard Duncan Powell is a junior and center Ibrahim Souare is a redshirt freshman. Guards Darrion Sutton and Jaeden Mustaf are freshmen.

“We fought through a lot of things all season long. We’ve had a lot of injuries and different things. It’s part of it. It happens,” Stoudamire said. “But they never made excuses, and I’m happy and proud to have coached them based on that. They fought, they fought, they fought, they fought, and just proud of them.”