Big West champion UC Davis makes its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament on Wednesday night when the Aggies take on North Carolina Central in the First Four in Dayton, Ohio. UC Davis, which finished its transition to Division I in 2007, has won six of its last seven games, while the Eagles took the MEAC tournament to make the Big Dance for the second time and the winner of the 16th-seed matchup faces top-seeded Kansas in the first round of the Midwest Regional Friday in Tulsa, Okla.

Georgia and Belmont find themselves in the same place they were last March - on the outside of the NCAA Tournament and facing each other in the opening round of the NIT. Belmont travels to Georgia on Wednesday looking to avoid the same fate as a year ago, as the Bulldogs won that matchup 93-84 behind 33 points from Yante Maten.

Central Florida will make only its seventh Division I postseason appearance and first in five years Wednesday when it hosts Colorado in the opening round of the NIT. The goal now for the Knights is earning the program’s first major Division I postseason win with its 0-1 and 0-4 records in the NIT and NCAA Tournament, respectively, after a run to the CBI semif

If Wednesday's NIT first-round matchup between Syracuse and UNC Greensboro was not intentionally scheduled, it certainly is an awfully big coincidence. One week after Orange coach Jim Boeheim jabbed the city of Greensboro, his top-seeded squad will host the eighth-seeded Spartans in a game originally scheduled for Tuesday but delayed due to heavy snow.

Akron and Houston return to the NIT for the second consecutive year as the seventh-seeded Zips travel to the Lone Star State to face the No. 2 Cougars on Wednesday. Akron, which earned an automatic bid as the regular-season champions of Mid-American Conference, came agonizingly close to a trip to the NCAA Tournament with a 70-65 loss to rival Kent State in the MAC championship game, while the Cougars bowed out in the American Athletic Conference quarterfinals.

Some teams might not fully embrace the NIT experience, but that’s not the case for Fresno State and TCU - two programs looking to use the postseason as a step toward future success. The fifth-seeded Bulldogs visit fourth-seeded TCU on Wednesday in the Iowa quadrant, with both teams primed for bigger things next season.

Iowa won four straight games to end the regular season and most likely needed one more victory to get a bid for its fourth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament. The Hawkeyes could not get the job done and instead stand three home-court wins from a trip to New York City for the NIT semifinals, starting with a visit from Summit League regular-season champion South Dakota on Wednesday.

Providence and USC won’t have to wait very long for an NCAA Tournament rematch, as the teams meet in a First Four contest on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio. Providence edged the Trojans 70-69 in a first-round game last season on Rodney Bullock’s basket with 1.5 seconds remaining, and the teams will face each other again for the right to move on as the 11th seed in the Eastern Region and play sixth-seeded SMU in Tulsa on Friday.