Tuesday night Georgia Tech (20-15) will face CSU Bakersfield (25-9) in its first National Invitation Tournament Final Four in 46 years on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. This will also be the first time the two teams have met in history.
First-year head coach Josh Pastner coached his team to wins over Indiana (75-63) and Belmont (71-57) at home before defeating Ole Miss, 74-66, last Tuesday night in Oxford, Miss.
CSU Bakersfield is the first No. 8 seed to reach the final four of the NIT. The Roadrunners, which won the regular-season championship of the Western Athletic Conference and earned an automatic bid to the NIT, have won all three of their NIT games on the road to reach the final four.
A team that wasn’t supposed to win more than four games this season has turned their play around and won 20 games this season, something that hasn’t been done since 2007.
In celebration of the team’s historic and ongoing run in the NIT, the school head a pep rally on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. outside of McCamish Pavilion. The band played while cheerleaders lead victory cheers and fans were greeted by the players. Afterwards, they headed to New York to settle in for their big game.
The winner of this game will go toe-to-toe with the winner of No. 4 seeds Central Florida (24-11) and TCU (22-15 for the NIT championship at 8 p.m. Thursday night, March 30, also on ESPN.
