NIT, NCAA settle their differences

Jury sent home after deal reached to end dispute

? The NCAA and the National Invitation Tournaments settled their differences in federal court Tuesday, likely ending a civil trial in which the NIT had claimed that the NCAA was trying to put it out of business.

A jury that had been listening to NIT witnesses and evidence in Manhattan was sent home for the day by U.S. district judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum after lawyers said a deal had been struck to end the dispute.

“We anticipate a complete resolution of the entire litigation,” NIT lawyer Jeffrey Kessler told Cedarbaum. “We reached an oral agreement on all the principled terms, but it is complex so we are going to spend today writing it all up.”

Lawyers on both sides did not immediately return telephone calls for comment.

Kessler, in his opening statement two weeks ago, said the NCAA “deliberately set out to get a monopoly, to eliminate competition, to make it impossible to compete.”

He argued that a long-standing NCAA rule requiring schools to accept invitations to its tournament over invitations to all others had severely damaged the NIT, which began its postseason tournament in 1938 – one year before the NCAA Tournament started.

The NIT is sponsored by the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Assn., which consists of Fordham University, Manhattan College, St. John’s University, Wagner College and New York University.

NCAA lawyer Gregory L. Curtner told the jury that the NCAA was made up of 1,024 schools, including the schools that sponsor the NIT tournament.