We’ve known for a while that Virginia Tech would be participating in the Preseason NIT (otherwise known now as the Preseason Virginia Tech Invitational).  We’ve known george mason would be in the pod (East Regional), led by their new coach and TechHoops.com favorite, Paul Hewitt.  We’ve known it would be played at the Cassell.  And now we know who the Hokies will play in the first round and who the other two teams are.

VT, the 4th overall seed in the Preseason NIT will open up the tournament with monmouth on November 14th, while george mason will play florida international (not to be confused with florida american, florida Earth, or florida milky way).  The two losers and the two winners will meet on November 16th, with the overall winner advancing to the self-proclaimed “Most Famous Arena in the World,” Madison Square Garden.  The semis are on November 23rd and the finals on the 25th.

monmouth is from the Northeast Conference.  The hawks finished 9-21 last season.  They are… they’re not good.

The other game features maybe the worst coaching match-up in ncaa history.  Hewitt’s exploits have been regularly documented on here.  He was 7-41 on the road in ACC games his last six years at georgia tech, and 33-63 overall in ACC play.  Thomas has gone 18-44 as the fiu head man in two seasons.  He won just 34% of his games as the New York Knicks Head Coach, and was an even worse Prez of Bball Operations (the Knicks had the highest payroll in the NBA in 2005-06 yet finished with the 2nd to last record in the NBA).

syracuse with former VT assistant Adrian Autry, oklahoma state, and stanford are the other top seeds and hosts.