With the teams who won their regular season conference but didn't win their conference tourneys got automatic bids to the NIT. That really shrunk the at large field. Decent teams like Richmond, Indiana, Marquette, UNLV, Boise State, Maryland among others were left out. We should appreciate that the Tigers are still playing...
They were an NCAA bubble team just a week ago according to some quasi-experts around the country. Still think we got hosed a little bit , but happy to be able to see this team playing another game (s).