Villanova Incentives for College Basketball Crown

With Villanova Men’s Basketball set to take part in the College Basketball Crown invitational tournament beginning on April 1, it’s worth taking a look at what the Wildcats stand to gain from participation.

Postseason invitationals beyond the Big Dance have always possessed a mixed reputation from fans: the National Invitation Tournament or NIT often derided as the “Not Invited Tournament,” for instance, an acceptance that your team wasn’t good enough to qualify for a shot at an NCAA title.

That dubious reputation kicked up a notch in recent years with the transfer portal free for all that begins soon after the regular season ends. With the potential for half a team to disappear within days of their last game played, many don’t see the point of dragging out an already-concluded season instead of getting a head start on improving for next year.

Enter the College Basketball Crown, a newcomer to the world of invitational tournaments even in an era when more teams than ever turn up their noses at that sort of thing. What does Villanova stand to gain from participating in the Crown, especially when they have a head coaching search to deal with?

It depends how much they win. The Crown possesses a prize pool worth $500,000 that qualifying programs can use toward NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) contracts, the pay-to-play incentives that have taken the college sports landscape by storm in recent years.

Of a field of 16 teams, the two semifinalists unable to make the championship game will receive $50,000; the runner-up, $100,000, and the champions the remaining $300,000. For comparison, star Villanova forward Eric Dixon made somewhere in the realm of $1.7 million through NIL this past season, so the Wildcats won’t be rolling in loot… but it certainly doesn’t hurt.