Simulate the 2026 NIT Tournament With a d20
28 March 2026
The NIT Doesn't Get Enough Love
March Madness gets all the noise, but the NIT is where the genuinely interesting basketball lives. Bubble teams with something to prove, mid-majors on a mission, and matchups that would never happen in the main draw. Thirty-two teams, one bracket, no excuses.
So we built a simulator for it.
How It Works
The 2026 NIT d20 Bracket Simulator uses the same One-Roll Playbook engine as our March Madness tracker. Every team has a real Net Rating pulled from the 2026 season data — that rating converts to a Team Strength Rating (TSR), which sets the base score for each game. Then you roll a d20.
A roll of 1 is a total collapse. A 20 is a historic night. Everything in between is the noise that makes basketball worth watching.
Who's In the Field
The 2026 NIT field has some genuine stories. Auburn is a 1-seed with a losing record — pure brand equity. SFA comes in at 28-5 and will have something to say about that. Tulsa looks like the class of the right bracket. Dayton, Nevada, and Wake Forest bring real pedigree.
Every first-round matchup is already loaded into the simulator with accurate ratings. No setup needed — just open it and start rolling.
What You Can Do
- Roll manually — open any game, enter your d20 rolls, see the score play out
- Auto-sim — let the engine run a side or the whole bracket in one click
- Results tab — full game-by-game log as the tournament progresses
- Export/import CSV — save your bracket state and come back to it
- Light and dark mode — play how you like
Give It a Roll
The bracket is set. Hinkle Fieldhouse on April 2nd, Gainbridge Fieldhouse on April 5th. Between now and then, you've got 31 games to simulate however many times you want.
Let us know in the comments who your d20 sends to Indianapolis.