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Men's Basketball Brandon Sans

Men's Hoops Draws Yale for NIT First Round

WILMINGTON, North Carolina – The UNCW men's basketball program will tip off the 2026 National Invitational Tournament (NIT) at Yale on Tuesday, Mar. 17, at 7 p.m. at the John J. Lee Amphitheater, as announced by the NIT late Sunday night.

The Coastal Athletic Association regular season champion Seahawks (26-6) will play the Bulldogs (24-6), who are the No. 3 seed in the Winston-Salem Region, for the first time. Tuesday's game will be aired on ESPN+.

UNCW will make its 12th postseason appearance and third under reigning CAA Coach of the Year Takayo Siddle, who guided the successful program to the 2022 CBI Championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament last season.

Tuesday will mark the third time the Seahawks have competed in the NIT, which enters its 88th year in 2026, after appearing in the 1998 and 2001 editions under incoming UNCW Hall of Fame coach Jerry Wainwright.

The Seahawks, who are the first CAA school to make the NIT since 2023, earned an automatic bid in this year's NIT field by winning their conference regular season title and top seed in the league tournament, along with a 'KNIT' score of better than 125.

A team's 'KNIT' score is a metric that is made up of seven other metrics (BPI, KPI, NET, KenPom, SOR, Torvik and WinsAboveBubble) divided by seven. UNCW's KNIT checks in at approximately 97, well past the criteria.
 
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