National Invitation Tournament - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So strong is the stigma of the post-season National Invitation Tournament as a consolation fixture that when teams with tenuous hopes of an NCAA Tournament berth lose away from home late in the season, opposing fans chant "N-I-T! N-I-T!" to taunt the players in the closing seconds. This is done regardless of whether the home team is headed for the NCAA Tournament or not. Irv Moss, a journalist for the Denver Post, once wrote of such a chant to a defeated team, "The three-letter word...was far more cutting than any four-letter word they could have hollered."