It’s March Madness once more, and while 68 teams will get a shot at a berth in the Final Four and a possible national title, the NCAA Tournament isn’t the only postseason tournament around. The National Invitational Tournament (or NIT) has a storied history in college football’s postseason, and your team is probably in it if it just missed out on the NCAA tourney.

But what happens if you win the second-tier tournament? Is that a sign of better things to come, such as a trip to the actual Big Dance?

Is there a correlation in winning the NIT and following up with a successful season in the next campaign?

Not always, but kinda, at least under the modern format of the tournament.

NIT winners in the following postseason Year Team Following season NCAA Tournament round Year Team Following season NCAA Tournament round 2016 George Washington CBI - 2015 Stanford - - 2014 Minnesota - - 2013 Baylor NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 2012 Stanford NIT - 2011 Wichita State NCAA Tournament Second round 2010 Dayton NIT - 2009 Penn State - - 2008 Ohio State NCAA Tournament First round 2007 West Virginia NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 2006 South Carolina - - 2005 South Carolina NIT - 2004 Michigan - - 2003 St. John's - - 2002 Memphis NCAA Tournament First round 2001 Tulsa NCAA Tournament Second round 2000 Wake Forest NCAA Tournament First round 1999 Cal NIT - 1998 Minnesota NCAA Tournament First round 1997 Michigan NCAA Tournament Second round 1996 Nebraska NIT - 1995 Virginia Tech NCAA Tournament Second round 1994 Villanova NCAA Tournament First round 1993 Minnesota NCAA Tournament Second round 1992 Virginia NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 1991 Stanford NCAA Tournament First round 1990 Vanderbilt NCAA Tournament First round 1989 St. John's NCAA Tournament Second round 1988 UConn NIT - 1987 Southern Miss NIT - 1986 Ohio State NCAA Tournament Second round 1985 UCLA NIT - 1984 Michigan NCAA Tournament Second round 1983 Fresno State NCAA Tournament First round 1982 Bradley - - 1981 Tulsa NCAA Tournament First round 1980 Virginia NCAA Tournament Third place 1979 Indiana NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 1978 Texas NCAA Tournament Second round 1977 St. Bonaventure NCAA Tournament First round 1976 Kentucky NCAA Tournament Elite 8 1975 Princeton NCAA Tournament First round 1974 Purdue NCIT - 1973 Virginia Tech - - 1972 Maryland NCAA Tournament Elite 8 1971 North Carolina NCAA Tournament Third place 1970 Marquette NCAA Tournament Regional third place 1969 Temple NCAA Tournament First round 1968 Dayton NCAA Tournament First round 1967 Southern Illinois - - 1966 BYU - - 1965 St. John's NIT - 1964 Bradley NIT - 1963 Providence NCAA tournament First round

Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, only three NIT champs have made it to the tourney’s second weekend, and none has advanced past the Sweet 16. In the last decade, an NIT championship hasn’t tied closely to a team’s NCAA Tournament hopes.

But since that 1985 expansion, if you win the NIT, you’re probably going to the NCAA Tournament the next season.

For the even lesser tournaments, the following year’s results are — predictably — much less predictive.

You might expect the winners of the lesser Collegeinsider.com Tournament and College Basketball Invitational to have even weaker N.C.A.A. tournament performances. Just one of six C.I.T. winners, Old Dominion in 2010, made the N.C.A.A. the next year. And only two of seven C.B.I. winners did. But one of those C.B.I. teams actually wins the prize for best performance in the N.C.A.A. by a smaller tournament titlist in the last 20 years.

There was a time when the NCAA Tournament wasn’t the premier postseason showcase in college basketball.

In fact, the NCAA Tournament didn’t even begin until a year after the NIT did.

In the early days, the Big Dance was actually pretty small, with only eight teams participating and only one getting in from each region. That meant that the NIT could have pick of the litter from everyone left, and oftentimes teams would be invited to both and turn the NCAA tournament down.

In 1968, the NIT expanded to 16 teams, and would expand to 32 by 1980. But by then, it was entrenched as the second-tier competition. The NCAA now actually owns and operates the NIT, which it purchased in 2010.

While it’s still a competition and something to play for, it doesn’t have the incentives that other second-tier competitions do. For instance, in European soccer, the UEFA Europa League champion gets an automatic berth in the incredibly lucrative UEFA Champions League during the following season. It entices team to actually try to put all their efforts into winning that competition.

On a fiscal front, there’s a slight boon for the schools that host the first two rounds on-campus, but finances for the NIT aren’t released by the NCAA, so it’s tough to truly gauge exactly how the revenue for the tournament is disbursed, and how much participating schools earn.

There’s at least some evidence to suggest that a team that wins the NIT is on the ascendancy and could take the next step in the following season with a berth into the NCAA Tournament. So if your team’s in the NIT, all is not lost.