Indianapolis, the capital of a basketball-crazed state, will become the center of the college hoops world in the spring of 2026.
Already chosen to host the 2026 Final Four, Indianapolis will also be the site of the NIT semifinals and finals and the Division II and Division III national championship games that year, the NCAA said Thursday.
Hinkle Fieldhouse, Butler’s home arena, will host the NIT semifinals, while the finals will be played in another venue yet to be announced. Long a staple of Madison Square Garden in New York, the NIT semifinals and finals moved to Las Vegas in 2023 and Indianapolis in 2024.
Gainbridge Fieldhouse, home of the NBA’s Pacers and WNBA’s Fever, will see the D2 and D3 national title games played one day before the D1 championship game is held at Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the NFL’s Colts.
It’s the second time that the D1, D2 and D3 championships will converge in one city. Atlanta hosted the full gamut of national championship games in 2013.
“This will be a tremendous celebration of men’s college basketball across all three divisions in Indy,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said in a statement. “When we did this in 2013, we had nearly 8,000 fans watching the Divisions II and III championship games, and the final two nights of this year’s NIT at Hinkle Fieldhouse featured sold-out crowds of more than 9,000 fans. It will be an awesome opportunity for student-athletes at the participating schools, as well as a showcase for the legendary college basketball fans in Indiana.”
Indianapolis and the surrounding area also hosted a centralized “bubble” NCAA Tournament in April 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Games were held at Hinkle Fieldhouse, Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indiana Farmers Coliseum, as well as on the campuses of Indiana University and Purdue University.
–Field Level Media
