INDIANAPOLIS — Selection Sunday had not turned out well at Auburn. The Tigers had hoped the NCAA committee would be impressed enough by their strength of schedule to not focus on less attractive numbers. A 17-16 record? What 17-16 record?
The answer was no, and the next question was what to do next. The NIT was on the line with an invitation. A lot of high major teams in that situation come to the same conclusion: they’re too disappointed, too hurt, too angry — no reason to go on.
Steven Pearl and his Auburn team thought otherwise.
Now they’re in Indianapolis, maybe not in the Final Four but certainly in the final four. The NIT semifinals and finals will be sharing the same city with the Final Four this year, a move Pearl said Wednesday was “brilliant.” That means Thursday in historic Hinkle Fieldhouse, it’ll be Auburn against Illinois State and Tulsa vs. New Mexico. The winners play Sunday night in Gainbridge Fieldhouse, 25 hours before and four blocks down the street from the national championship game. Division II and Division III will be deciding champions in Gainbridge as well Sunday. It’s one big umbrella of college basketball in downtown Indianapolis.
HISTORIC: 88th NIT to share college basketball’s biggest weekend
Let’s face it, not every team goes into the NIT in prime focus. These four apparently did. Pearl stood in the Hinkle Fieldhouse hallway Wednesday and described how it all began with his players.
“It was just being totally transparent and honest with them. We have an opportunity of proving a lot of people wrong because people are going to look at this and they’re going to think we’re going to come out flat and not be excited about playing, which they were right about in the first half of the first game.”
The Tigers were down six points to South Alabama. “People may have been looking and being, like, what the hell are they doing?” Pearl said. But they course corrected and won by 11. They then defeated Seattle and Nevada, leading for 74:41 of the 80 minutes. Now here they are.
Just another Filip dunk for your feed😅
📺: ESPN2 pic.twitter.com/hf9kn1FwfE
— Auburn Basketball (@AuburnMBB) March 26, 2026
“They’ve really changed the narrative of how people look at them,” Pearl said. “They’ve played with purpose and they’ve competed and they’ve found some joy in playing.”
“Once they got past (the angst from being left out) and started to play a little bit and they started to compete a little bit, all that goes away. That was my hope going into this thing. But it was a risk. All year you’re striving and trying to make the tournament and you’re probably one game away from doing that, obviously the disappointment was substantial.”
The other three teams understand. A NIT title was never Job 1, but now it is.
New Mexico coach Eric Olen: “Really proud of our guys for how they responded to some disappointment to play well in this event. If you look across history there’s some mixed results with teams participating in this event and their ability to be excited about it.”
Tulsa senior David Green, still playing despite coming off a shoulder injury: “I just wanted to win. I just wanted to keep going.”
Illinois State coach Ryan Pedon: “There’s a level of resolve that’s required because you’re sort of recalibrating in that moment. It’s an honor to play in the postseason for sure, but we see it all across the country in non-NCAA tournaments. If you’re not in the right frame of mind, you’ll set yourself up to go home real quick.”
So New Mexico blew through Sam Houston, George Washington and Saint Joseph’s by 24, 25 and 15, averaging 92.3 points a game to get here with a 26-10 record. Tulsa fought through overtime with Stephen F. Austin and a tight game with Wichita State to run its record to 29-7 and get here. After whipping Kent State at home by 21 — “I think got us back in the right frame of mind,” Pedon said — Illinois State went to Wake Forest to defeat the Demon Deacons by three and then to Dayton, jumping ahead 13-0 to take the steam out and win by six. The Redbirds are 23-12.
To be in the Final Four city is a perk.
“You can kind of feel the energy downtown, even though it hasn’t started yet,” Olen said.
“Personally I’ve never been at a Final Four in my life, so just to kind of be around everything and see how everything takes place, it’s really special,” said Illinois State guard Johnny Kinziger “Then even to just be a part of that, it’s even more special.”
To play in Hinkle Fieldhouse, where the movie Hoosiers was filmed, is a perk.
“I asked. Only about a quarter of our team have seen Hoosiers,” Tulsa coach Eric Konkol said. “I’m going to play a clip for them tonight. I thought about measuring the hoop and the free throw line, just like the movie.
“I’m a basketball junkie. I always have been. This is an really historic thing. I mean, the NIT has been around since 1938, Hinkle Fieldhouse I think since the ’20s. The guys know that I geek out on this stuff and talk about it to them.
“We tried to make sure that the guys realize, we’re just a small piece of this basketball history; we are within our own program, but to take advantage of every moment because this is really, really cool.”
I think you’ll find this is the exact same measurements as our gym back in Auburn. pic.twitter.com/VYM93rczGI
— Auburn Basketball (@AuburnMBB) April 1, 2026
The chance to win something is a big perk.
In Illinois State’s case, that would be catching a bigger fish, such as Auburn.
“We have a group that has a real chip on their shoulder,” Pedon said. “Whether that be high-major, mid-major, we’ve played all shapes and sizes this year, it’s something that we relish, we welcome, we covet.”
In Auburn’s case, as the most conspicuous team left out of the NCAA bracket, it is a chance to respond with a trophy. The Tigers played 17 games against Quad 1 opponents this season and went 4-13. They played Arizona, Michigan — 12 games in all against teams destined for at least the Sweet 16 — and went 3-9. They defeated St. John’s. Texas, Florida.
They were hoping that was enough. When it wasn’t, this week in Indianapolis became Plan B. Maybe the fans back home weren’t all that inspired. The listed attendance for their three NIT wins to get here were 2,169, 3,672 and 2,756. But the players were chasing a new goal.
“Like I said, when everything happened, I’m here to coach basketball, and those guys are here to play basketball,” Pearl said. “Here’s the thing, an opportunity to compete on ESPN and Hinkle Fieldhouse and potentially Gainbridge Fieldhouse if you are able to win that game, 99 percent of basketball players would die for that opportunity.”
Meanwhile, the NCAA tournament went on. “Surprisingly this is the first year after we got knocked out that I’ve been able to watch it,” Pearl said. “It’s just been a motivation for me. Since we’re still playing it’s been easier for me to watch it.”
Now the two tournaments have intersected in the same town. Pearl believes that idea is a keeper, and should be repeated every April.
“I think that would incentivize more teams at our level to play in the NIT,” he said. “Obviously being able to play in Hinkle Fieldhouse is a ton of incentive, but I just think being a part of this weekend with our guys made them a little more excited about it. Obviously it’s not the one that we want to be in, but there’s still a vibe in the city, and there’s still a level of excitement in the city that our guys get to play in front of.”
For Auburn, the pain of Selection Sunday has had a fortnight to fade. Two more wins might expedite the process.
