The Northeast Conference men's basketball tournament is the conference championship tournament in basketball for the Northeast Conference (NEC). It has been held every year since the NEC was established in the 1981–82 season. The tournament is an eight-team single-elimination tournament and seeding is based on regular season records. The bracket is reseeded after the quarterfinals, with the highest remaining seed playing the lowest remaining seed in the semifinals. The tournament winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA basketball tournament.
Robert Morris, which left the NEC in 2020 for the Horizon League, is the program that has won the most NEC Tournament Championships (9), followed by current NEC members LIU (6) and Fairleigh Dickinson (6) as well as Mount St. Mary's (also 6), which left the NEC in 2022 for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.[2] LIU, which before 2019–20 represented only the university's Brooklyn campus, has been the only program to win three consecutive tournament championships, from 2011–2013. Robert Morris won back-to-back championships on three occasions (1982–83, 1989–90 and 2009–10), the only other programs to win back-to-back championships, Marist and Rider, are also no longer members of the NEC. Of the current conference members (9 programs), three have not won a championship. Sacred Heart has participated in all NEC tournaments since joining the conference; Le Moyne and Stonehill have yet to participate.
Through the 2022 tournament, schools transitioning from NCAA Division II were ineligible for the conference tournament, paralleling NCAA policy that prohibits such schools from NCAA-sponsored postseason play (either the NCAA tournament or the NIT). After the 2021–22 season, the NEC presidents voted to allow transitional members to participate in the NEC tournament starting with the third season of their four-year transition. Merrimack, which joined the NEC in 2019–20, was thus eligible for the 2023 tournament, its last before completing its D-I transition. Stonehill, a 2022–23 arrival, was only in its first transition year and, therefore not eligible to participate in the 2023 NEC tournament. Under the 2022 rule, should a transitional program win the conference tournament, the automatic NCAA tournament bid went to the other finalist.[3]
Effective for the 2023–24 academic year, NEC teams transitioning from Division II are eligible for the NEC tournament during the entirety of their transition periods. If a reclassifying institution wins the NEC tournament championship, the tournament runner-up will be awarded the NEC's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. If two reclassifying teams reach the final of the NEC tournament, the conference will stage an automatic qualifier game between the two non-advancing semifinalists.[4] The rule change resulted in Stonehill and Le Moyne being eligible for the 2024 NEC tournament, since that was Stonehill's second transition year and Le Moyne's first. Similarly, Mercyhurst, which joins the NEC from Division II in July 2024, will be eligible for the 2025 NEC tournament.
^From 1981 to 2019, Long Island University was represented in the Northeast Conference by its Brooklyn campus, known for athletic purposes as "Long Island" through the 2012–13 season and "LIU Brooklyn" from 2013–14 forward. After the 2018–19 season, LIU merged the athletic programs of its Brooklyn and Post campuses into a single program, now competing as the LIU Sharks, that inherited the NCAA Division I and Northeast Conference memberships of the Brooklyn campus.
^Le Moyne, which started a transition from NCAA Division II in 2023, is not eligible for NCAA-sponsored postseason play in any of its sports until the 2027–28 school year. Under NEC rules, it was immediately eligible to participate in the NEC tournament.
^Stonehill, which started a transition from NCAA Division II in 2022, is not eligible for NCAA-sponsored postseason play in any of its sports except men's and women's ice hockey until the 2026–27 school year. Stonehill was eligible to participate in the NEC tournament for the first time in 2024.
