Wake Forest to Play Navy in First Round of NIT

The Deacs aren’t done playing basketball. Despite finishing the season in 13th place in the ACC with a 17-16 record, Wake Forest was not only invited to play in the NIT, but they are a 1 seed. In the opening round, the Deacs will take on Navy on Wednesday at 7pm.

Navy finished the season 26-7 overall and 17-1 in the Patriot league. Their tourney hopes were dashed when the lost by 1 point to Boston University in the semifinals of the conference tournament. They are 142nd on KenPom and 136th in the NET rankings. If Wake wins, their future opponents could include Illinois State, Kent State, Yale, UNCW, Bradley and Dayton before the final four.

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The NIT has certainly lost a lot of its luster over the past few years with most power 5 teams opting out to start preparing for the transfer portal—I doubt Wake would have gotten an invite without several teams, such as Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, and Indiana, opting to decline bids. At the end of the day, playing in the NIT can’t really hurt the team, as college programs are fully capable of scouting and recruiting the portal while also playing basketball games. If teams in the NCAA tournament can do it, there’s no reason teams in the NIT wouldn’t also be able to do it. After a disappointing season, I completely understand if fans are just ready to close the book on this year move onto next season, but if the players want to keep playing basketball, there’s really no reason they shouldn’t.

Go Deacs.

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/wake-forest-play-navy-first-020144126.html

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Publish date : 2026-03-16 02:01:00

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