Post-season National Invitation NIT Tournament was founded in 1938 by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association, one year after the NAIA tournament was created by basketball's inventor Dr James Naismith, and one year before the NCAA tournament.
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The first NIT Tournament was won by the Temple University Owls over the Colorado Buffaloes.
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Responsibility for the NIT Tournament's administration was transferred in 1940 to the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Committee, a body of local New York colleges: Fordham University, Manhattan College, New York University, St John's University, and Wagner College.
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From its onset and at least into the mid-1950s, the NIT Tournament was regarded as the most prestigious showcase for college basketball.
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The winner of the National Invitation NIT Tournament was regarded as more of a national champion than the actual, titular, national champion, or winner of the NCAA tournament.
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Compounding this, to cut costs, the NIT Tournament moved its early rounds out of Madison Square Garden in 1977, playing games at home sites until the later rounds.
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The MIBA alleged that compelling teams to accept invitations to the NCAA tournament even if they preferred to play in the NIT was an illegal use of the NCAA's powers.
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The NIT is held in generally higher regard than the three newer tournaments that have debuted since 2008 ; St Bonaventure, a school that has a policy of refusing to play in those newer tournaments, still accepts bids to the NIT if invited.
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Therefore, schools selected to play in the NIT Tournament were often major conference teams with records near.
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Previously, the NIT Tournament Committee had eight members, all of whom had been former head college basketball coaches or athletics directors.
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New attendance record for an NIT Tournament game was set at Syracuse University's Carrier Dome on March 19,2007, at the Syracuse-San Diego State game.
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From 1969 to 1996, a National Women's Invitational Tournament existed; the tournament was resurrected under the same name in 1998, and has been known as the Women's National Invitation Tournament since 1999.
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