While the NCAA Tournament is the pinnacle of March Madness, over the years a few other tournaments have sprouted up as a supplement of sorts. The NIT was always the main fallback option for not making The Big Dance. One of the more recent events was the CBI, or College Basketball Invitational, although the 2026 version of the tournament has been effectively cancelled.
With the exception of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 2026 will be the first time in the history of the CBI that the tournament has been cancelled. The event organizers posted on social media that the College Basketball Invitational had been cancelled “due to circumstances beyond our control,” and that the tournament is expected to resume next season.
The CBI had acted as a second chance for college basketball teams that did not qualify for either the NCAA Tournament or the NIT. It was founded in 2008, and the inaugural champion was Tulsa after defeating Bradley. The inaugural CBI MVP was Tulsa’s Jerome Jordan who played a couple of seasons in the NBA with the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets.
The event’s most recent champion was Illinois State who defeated Cleveland State in the 2025 title game. There has been a different champion for each year that the College Basketball Invitational has been around.
In addition to Jordan, there have been several other players that won the CBI MVP and went on to play in the NBA including Lamar Patterson, Justin James, Kessler Edwards and Jaylen Sims.
In addition to the NIT and the CBI, the College Basketball Crown is another alternative for teams that did not make the NCAA Tournament.
