NEW HAVEN, Conn. — After an intense weekend of Ivy League Tournament basketball in Ithaca, New York, the Yale men's basketball team will not have to travel far for its first round of postseason play. 

In the opening round of their third-ever National Invitation Tournament appearance, the Bulldogs will host the UNCW Seahawks out of the Coastal Athletic Association, drawing in as the No. 3 seed of the Winston-Salem Region. Televised on ESPN+, the game will take place on Tuesday, March 17 at 7 p.m. in the John J. Lee Amphitheater, a first for the NIT. The winner of the matchup will face off against the winner of Dayton vs. Bradley in the Second Round on either March 21 or 22. 

UNCW (26-6, 15-3 CAA) won its conference's regular-season title before falling in the CAA Quarterfinals to the ninth-seeded Campbell Fighting Camels. The defeat ended the Seahawks' bid for a second-straight NCAA Tournament appearance. 

Yale (24-6, 11-3 Ivy) won the Ivy League regular season championship for the second-straight year, and third time in four years. The Bulldogs' regular season featured marquee non-conference victories over Patriot League regular season champion Navy, College of Charleston, MAC Tournament champion Akron and MEAC Tournament champion Howard. Yale, the No. 1 seed in the Ivy League tournament, fell to Penn in overtime of Sunday's championship game.

This will be the first-ever matchup between Yale and UNC Wilmington in men's basketball. 

Yale is making its third appearance in the NIT. In 2001-02, the Bulldogs upset Rutgers in the first round, the first postseason victory in the long history of the program. In the second round, the Bulldogs hosted Tennessee Tech at the old New Haven Coliseum, and before 9,847 fans, the largest home crowd in the history of Yale men's basketball, the Bulldogs fell to the Golden Eagles. In 2022-23, Yale fell to the Vanderbilt Commodores in the opening round of the tournament. 

In 2026, the NIT will host its championship in the same host city as the NCAA Final Four for the first time ever, with the title game taking place on April 5 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. 

An Ivy League program has not won the NIT since Princeton won it all in 1975.