Cleveland State Selected to Play in NIT Season Tip-Off

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cleveland State men's basketball team has been selected to play in the 2012 NIT Season Tip-Off. The field and bracket for the 28th annual tournament was announced on Tuesday by NIT selection committee chair C.M. Newton.

The Vikings, who are seeded seventh in the tournament, will open play in the event on Monday, Nov. 12, in a first round game in the North Regional in Ann Arbor, Mich., against Bowling Green at 6:00 p.m. The CSU-BGSU winner will play the winner of top-seeded Michigan and IUPUI the next night. The first round losers will also meet in the consolation round on Nov. 13 at Michigan.

This will be the first meeting between CSU and Bowling Green since Dec. 28, 2002, an 80-72 Falcon win.

Other first and second round doubleheaders will be played on Nov. 12-13 on the campuses of No. 2 seed Virginia, third-seeded Kansas State and fourth-seeded Pittsburgh. The winners of the preliminary rounds will advance to the semifinals at New York City's Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, Nov. 21. The consolation and championship games will be played on Nov. 23.

The remaining 12 teams will play third and fourth round doubleheaders on Nov. 19-20 on the campuses of the three highest remaining seeds as all 16 teams are guaranteed four games in the event. Participating teams will not play any team twice and the third and fourth rounds will be assigned to the most geographically compatible sites.

In addition to the top four seeds, seeded teams include No. 5 Lehigh, No. 6 Robert Morris, No. 7 Cleveland State and No. 8 Delaware.

The other first and second round sites and pairings are as follows:

• The East Regional, hosted by Pittsburgh, has the Panthers playing Fordham and Robert Morris going up against Lehigh. 
• The Midwest Regional, hosted by Kansas State, has the Wildcats matching up with Lamar and North Texas playing Alabama-Huntsville.
• The South Regional, hosted by Virginia, has the Cavaliers playing Fairfield and Delaware vs. Penn.

The 2012 NIT Season Tip-Off will be carried by the ESPN family of networks, televising games on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3. All game broadcasts will also be available on WatchESPN.

(Release courtesy CSUVikings.com)