NIT field set; Temple a No. 1 seed

Mar 16, 2015 - 1:44 AM New York, NY (SportsNetwork.com) - Temple, Colorado State, Richmond and Old Dominion were named the top seeds for the 32-team National Invitation Tournament field on Sunday.

Temple was left out of the NCAA Tournament despite its 23-10 record in the competitive American Athletic Conference and a 25-point rout of Kansas in December. The Owls lost to eventual-champion SMU in the conference tourney semifinals, however, and had several losses against weaker opponents.

Their first opponent will be Bucknell, while 27-win Colorado State plays South Dakota State, Richmond squares off against St. Francis-Brooklyn and Old Dominion battles Charleston Southern.

Connecticut, last year's NCAA champion, is a No. 4 seed and will play Arizona State in the first round.

Other first round games include: Pittsburgh-George Washington; Louisiana Tech- Central Michigan; Texas A&M-Montana; Illinois-Alabama; Miami-N.C. Central; St. Mary's (CA)-Vanderbilt; Rhode Island-Iona; Stanford-UC Davis; Illinois St.- Green Bay; Murray State-UTEP; Tulsa-William & Mary.

First-round play is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, and the final four teams will advance to New York City for the semifinals. The event will conclude with the championship game on Thursday, April 2 at Madison Square Garden.

Minnesota beat SMU in last year's final.