America East regular-season champion Boston University has earned a berth in the 40-team National Invitation Tournament. The Terriers (20-10) will play St. John's (16-13) Wednesday (March 19) in a first round game at 7:30 p.m. at the Alumni Hall in Jamaica, N.Y.
It is the first NIT appearance for an America East team since 2000, and the first for Boston University since 1986. Coincidnetally, current St. John's head coach Mike Jarvis was the head coach at Boston University that season when the Terriers dropped a 72-69 decision to Providence at the Providence Civic Center in the NIT.
The winner of the Boston University-St. John's game will play the winner of the Brown-Virgina game either Monday (March 24) or Tuesday (March 25).
Opening round games include: Valparaiso (20-10) at Iowa Monday; Villanova (15-15) at Siena (19-10), Boston College (18-11) at Fairfield (19-11), and Drexel (19-11) at Temple (15-15) Tuesday; and Illinois-Chicago (21-8) at Western Michigan (19-10), College of Charleston (24-7) at Kent State (21-9), Providence (16-13) at Richmond (16-12), and Wichita State (18-11) at Iowa State (16-13) Wednesday.
Other first round games include: Georgetown (15-14) at Tennessee (17-11), and DePaul (16-12) at North Carolina (17-15) Tuesday (March 18); Ohio State (17-14) at Georgia Tech (14-14), Brown (17-11) at Virginia (15-15), Seton Hall (17-12) at Rhode Island (19-10), Louisiana-Lafayette (20-9) at UAB (19-12), Minnesota (16-12) at Saint Louis (16-13), Nevada (18-13) at Texas Tech (18-12), Eastern Washington (18-12) at Wyoming (20-10), UC Santa Barbara (18-13) at San Diego State (15-13), and Hawaii (18-11) at UNLV (21-10) Wednesday (March 19).