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J.T. Durley and Graham Hatch scored 12 points each to lead a balanced offense, and the fourth-seeded Shockers simply overwhelmed top-seeded Alabama 66-57 on Thursday night to win the NIT championship at Madison Square Garden. ...

CHARLESTON, W.Va — West Virginia won the National Invitation Tournament title, but its commemorative T-shirts are less than championship material. They contain a misspelling. The "West Virginia" printed on the shirts players wore after winning the NIT Thursday night is missing the last "i" in "Virginia." WVU sports information director Shelly Poe blamed the NIT for printing the shirts.

West Virginia Mountaineer players pose after winning the championship round of the National Invitation Tournament.

Penn State (-3) hosts Rutgers in a first-round NIT match The NIT begins play Tuesday night, getting in two days of action before it really falls into the shadow of the Big Dance. The invitations went out far and wide to fill the field this year with Delaware State of the Mid-Eastern Conference and Lipscomb of the Atlantic Sun among the invitees. Both will begin play Tuesday night, visiting Northern Arizona (-7.5) and UTEP (-11.5) respectively. In matchups between well-known teams Butler (-3.5) will host Miami, Ohio, Akron (+7.5) will visit Temple, Penn State (-3) will host Rutgers and Virginia...

The NCAA now owns college basketball's postseason. The organization purchased the rights to the preseason and postseason National Invitation Tournaments as part of a settlement that ends a four-year legal fight between the two parties. The 40-team postseason NIT, which is a year older than the NCAA tournament and was once the bigger event, will now be run by the NCAA. In the deal announced Wednesday at Madison Square Garden, the NCAA said it will pay $56.5 million to the five New York City colleges that operate the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association, the organization that has run the NIT since...

The bond between them is close and obvious. They were teammates on Pete Newell's fine University of San Francisco's basketball teams six decades ago, and they've remained good friends -- Cap Lavin, the father of former UCLA coach Steve Lavin, and Willie "Woo Woo" Wong, by all accounts one of the finest Chinese American players ever. Lavin has no trouble remembering just how skilled his longtime friend was, or in talking about it when they get together. "Willie was easily the most complete player we had on our NIT team in 1950," Lavin said. Wong just smiles a little. At...

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -- Kevin Hamilton scored a career-high 26 points, 11 during a 23-5 run, leading Holy Cross to a 78-73 win Tuesday night over Notre Dame in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament. The Fighting Irish, who trailed by 13 points early in the second half, used a 9-2 run to close to 60-59 after a pair of 3-pointers by Chris Thomas and a basket by Rick Cornett with 4:20 left. The Crusaders answered with five straight points and maintained the lead down the stretch. It was the first postseason victory for the Crusaders (25-6)...

<p>NEW YORK -- Big-money entrepreneurs, not the National Invitation Tournament, could damage postseason college basketball if the NCAA tournament is ruled an illegal monopoly, an NCAA attorney argued Thursday in U.S. District Court.</p> <p>The NIT is suing the NCAA, saying it violates antitrust laws by requiring teams to participate in the NCAA tournament if they are invited.</p>

<p>SAN ANTONIO -- The men's and women's basketball tournaments are over, but the NCAA is about to play some defense in another kind of court.</p> <p>At issue is the legality of an NCAA rule requiring all teams invited to its basketball tournament to participate.</p>