by Julian Washington
The College Invitational Tournament, or better known as the CIT, is a tournament for teams that didn’t make it into either the NCAA tournament or the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). CIT is the newest tournament, created in 2009, which allows more teams to play beyond the regular season. In 2012, the tournament expanded to its current 32 participating teams from 16 teams. The format of the tournament is a single elimination style that consists of five rounds. The past five winners of the tournament are Evansville, Murray State, East Carolina, Mercer, and Santa Clara. It is Mercer’s first appearance since they won the tournament in 2012.
Norfolk State has experience playing in the CIT. They have played in the CIT for the past two seasons, losing both appearances in the first round. The Spartans lost to Eastern Michigan in 2014, and Eastern Kentucky in 2015. Norfolk State has a tough opponent playing against the Columbia Lions, who finished their season with a record of 21-10 in the Ivy League. Tipoff is 7 p.m. at Levien Gymnasium.
The 2016 tournament will be the first tournament to feature a “classic “game. It will have the John Mclendon “Classic” game, which will be a representative of either Coach McClendon’s former team at Tennessee State University, the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) or the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC). This means that the Classic will have at least one historically black college or university participating with the chance to advance to the CIT’s second round. The two teams competing this year are Grand Canyon University and South Carolina State University. Grand Canyon beat South Carolina State 78-74, with Grandy Glaze winning the MVP honors.
You can watch all of the Collegeinsider.com Tournament games on their tournament website.
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