There are 16 teams that are going to be in the College Basketball Invitational Tournament, and most of the teams are going to have the opportunity to come from some of the biggest conferences in America. We know that a lot of these teams are ultimately going to turn down the chance to play here in the CBI, because it doesn’t pay for them to travel to games, and they don’t want to pay for the right to be in home games, but we have to make the assumption that all of the teams are going to ultimately be play until proven otherwise. Check out our CBI Bracketology for 2013!

Don’t see your favorite team listed here in the CBI? Check out our NIT Bracketology or our CIT Bracketology instead. Also note that teams that are ineligible for the postseason are not included.

Before we begin, we must note that this is a very fluid situation and will remain so for the rest of the week until the bracket is finally set. Some teams are starting to accept bids to the secondary tournaments, and others are showing some interest as well. We’re going to be keeping this page up to date so you can tell where all of your favorite teams are going to be headed this year for the postseason.

Western Teams
The definition of a “West Bracket” really has been blown up by the fact that there really don’t seem to be all that many teams from the West Coast that are willing to be in the CBI. The Oregon State Beavers have turned down a trip to the CBI reportedly, and that finally opens up the spot for the North Dakota State Bison that we have so badly been trying to slot in for the last few days. The Utah Utes are also expected to play after their great run in the Pac-12 Tournament. The other “West” teams are going to be the Texas Longhorns and the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. Both teams have the resources to be able to travel the longer distance without it hurting them, and both seem to be quite excited to get into this field to give it a shot at taking home some hardware this year.

East Coast Teams
From this point down the bracket though, a ton has changed overnight in the CBI. In the Northeast, about the only teams that are going to be playing are the Bryant Bulldogs and the George Mason Patriots. George Mason will supposedly be hosting, while Bryant has reportedly accepted a bid to this tournament. This would likely be the first round matchup if that were to be the case. The Vermont Catamounts have also accepted a bid into the CBI, which is going to make things a bit dicey for a matchup. We have to think that there is another team from the Northeast that is going to be coming into this bracket, but for now, we’re going to shift the Purdue Boilermakers here instead.

Midwest Teams (1)
There really are eight teams from the Midwest that have drawn some interest from the CBI, and we are going to break those teams into two sets of brackets. The Charleston Cougars are going to have to travel a bit farther than most teams in the CBI if this is how things play out, but the SoCon reps have been linked to this tournament without many others being in the Southeast. The Summit League’s Western Illinois Leathernecks could be a team to watch if they get into the CBI as we expect. The Murray State Racers have gone back and forth as to whether or not they are going to accept a bid to the CBI or the CIT. We think they will, and we’ll put them in this bracket. The Wright State Raiders have been a team that we have consistently kept in the CBI for quite some time, and the runners up in the Horizon League are deserving of the spot.

Midwest Teams (2)
The Southern teams that you are used to seeing in this spot are largely deciding not to play in the CBI according to various reports. The SEC teams are all probably going to be turning down bids to play in the CBI, and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets announced that they won’t be playing in the postseason either. So, here are some more Midwest teams that could be in the field of 16. The Nebraska Cornhuskers are the big name team here, knowing that the Children of the Corn had a respectable year in the Big Ten and might want to keep playing. The Eastern Kentucky Colonels appear as though they are going to come up just short of the NIT and will be a good fit here as a potential host in the CBI. The Ohio Bobcats are probably just short of the NIT as well, and they would join a team like the Northern Iowa Panthers, who went from a team that would perhaps be an NCAA Tournament contender to one that totally fell out of the dance and the NIT in a span of just a few weeks.