Auburn, Tulsa to meet in NIT championship game

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The NIT Championship game is set with a matchup of two No. 1 seeds, the Auburn Tigers and the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.

This will be Tulsa’s third appearance in the NIT championship game with victories in 1981 and 2001. The Auburn Tigers previously reached the quarterfinals in 2004.

The Tigers are a year removed from a Final Four appearance with National Player of the Year finalist Johni Broome.

On Sept. 22, 2025, Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl retired, and his son and assistant coach, Steven Pearl was set to be his successor.

“I don’t think you guys have enough time to go through the amount of lessons I’ve learned in my first year,” Steven Pearl said Friday.

Pearl said he was thankful for Elyjah Freeman, Kevin Overton, Tahaad Pettiford and Keyshawn Hall for their contributions in a challenging transition season.

“They were put in an incredibly difficult situation this year,” Pearl said. “Only one returning starter, 10 new guys, nine underclassmen, having to deal with me as a first-year head coach, playing one of the toughest strength of schedules in all of college basketball in the deepest league in the country and going through some tremendous highs and some very difficult lows.”

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— NIT (@NITMBB) April 5, 2026

The Tigers advanced to the NIT Championship game behind an 88-66 victory over the Illinois State Redbirds.

Illinois State started the game hot from 3-point range, shooting 50% in the first half. The Auburn defense adjusted, however, and held the Redbirds to 4-for-13 from behind the arc in the second half.

Auburn has a similar task in the championship game with the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.

“As a team, they shoot close to 40% from three, and that’s something we’re going to have to lock into,” said Pearl. “After the first five or seven minutes, we did a better job of executing the game plan defensively and taking away the things that Illinois State did really well. It’s going to require that and more against this team.”

In 2022, the Tulsa Golden Hurricane made the decision to hire Eric Konkol as men’s head basketball coach. After three seasons, Konkol held a record of 34-60. His only winning season was in 2024 when his team was 16-15.

Konkol’s 30 wins this season are the second most in a Tulsa men’s basketball history. In 2000, the Golden Hurricane won 32 games when coached by coach Bill Self, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017. Tulsa would win its second NIT title the following year after Self left for the head coaching job at University of Illinois.

“This has been such an enjoyable group, and not just through the wins but the valleys too,” Konkol said in the postgame press conference of the NIT semifinal game. “We have a vision of what Tulsa basketball can be consistently. This is a great step.”

The staple of the Tulsa offense is a balanced scoring approach as the Golden Hurricane finished three of the four NIT tournament games with four players scoring in double digits. Through four games, three Tulsa players are averaging double-digit points per game: senior guard Miles Barnstable (17.7), junior guard Ade Popoola (15.3) and junior guard Tylen Riley (13.3).

“It’s a great credit to our assistant coaches in the way that they evaluated guys that would fit together with a lot of versatility,” explained Konkol in the postgame press conference after defeating New Mexico, 74-69, in the NIT semifinals. “We’ve had injuries. We’ve had foul trouble, but we’ve had contributions consistently from these ten guys all season. They delivered in a big stage tonight.”

The win over New Mexico once again displayed a balanced approach offensively, as four of the five Tulsa starters finished with double-digit points. Freshman guard Jaylen Lawal scored 10 of Tulsa’s 21 bench points.

Sean Strohmayer writes for the Sports Capital Journalism Program at IU Indianapolis.