Staff Lunch, Dance Contest Boot North Texas From Home NIT Games

The North Texas men’s basketball team had to move a home game in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) to its lower-seeded opponent’s arena due to a scheduling conflict.

The preplanned event was a staff appreciation lunch.

The Denton Record-Chronicle first reported the news.

A university statement provided to Front Office Sports said the school “would have loved to host the quarterfinal round in the Super Pit,” but “pre-existing commitments” of “a campus-wide event and a long-term external contract” meant it could not host.

In their fourth straight trip to the NIT, the Mean Green advanced to a quarterfinal game against Oklahoma State. The game would be scheduled Tuesday or Wednesday based on the TV slot. NIT rules require the host site to be available for both days, so Wednesday’s staff lunch (which removed the court) forced the team into a road game.

“We worked with campus to explore alternative venues but, for a number of reasons, weren’t able to find another suitable venue for so many attendees,” athletic director Jared Mosley said to the Record-Chronicle. “There is no guarantee even if the staff appreciation luncheon could have been moved that we would have been selected to host due to other planning the NIT does and not knowing if television would have slotted our game for Tuesday or Wednesday.”

North Texas beat Oklahoma State 61–59 Tuesday night.

Wednesday afternoon, West Virginia announced it had hired away North Texas men’s coach Ross Hodge.

The Mean Green will play either University of Alabama at Birmingham or UC Irvine Tuesday in the NIT semifinals, its second consecutive appearance.

The university notified the NIT months in advance of its availability, and had already rescheduled multiple events to host the first two rounds, the Record-Chronicle reported. Both the men’s and women’s teams are still alive in the NIT and WNIT, respectively, and hosted games during the tournament at home in previous rounds.

The staff lunch isn’t the only conflict forcing Mean Green teams to move around. The women’s team knew their Thursday game against Troy would be on the road regardless of the opponent after hosting Monday because the school had a longstanding agreement to host the national championships for the American Dance/Drill Team beginning Friday and lasting through the weekend.

The women’s team last went to the WNIT in 2022.

An official for the university told the Record-Chronicle that close to a third of all teams in the NIT cede their home court advantage because of scheduling conflicts. For example, No. 1 seed Dayton had to go on the road against Florida Atlantic University and Chattanooga because their home arena was hosting March Madness First Four games and then Ohio’s high school state basketball championships.

A representative for the NIT did not immediately respond to questions.