The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Six Big East schools, including Villanova and its suspension-limited roster, headed the 40-team field for the NIT. Five other conferences - the Atlantic 10, Atlantic Coast, Conference USA, Big Ten and Mountain West - all had three teams chosen for the tournament which gets under way Monday and concludes with the championship game at Madison Square Garden on April  3.

Villanova (15-15), which had 12 players suspended March 9 for alleged unauthorized use of a campus phone access code, will be limited to seven players as it was in its final regular season game against Pittsburgh and its Big East tournament opening-round game.

The other Big East teams selected were: Boston College (18-11), Georgetown (15-14), Providence (16-13), Seton Hall (17-12) and St. John's (16-13).

Temple (15-15), Georgia Tech (14-14) and Virginia (15-15) were the other teams in the field with the minimum .500 record.

Charleston (24-8) had the most wins of the teams in the field and was one of eight school in with 20-plus wins.

In addition to Temple, Rhode Island (19-10) and Richmond (15-13) were from the Atlantic 10, while Georgia Tech and Virginia were joined by fellow ACC school North Carolina (17-15).

DePaul (16-12), Saint Louis (16-13) and UAB (19-12were chosen from Conference USA, while the Mountain West will have San Diego State (15-12), UNLV (20-10) and Wyoming (21-10). Minnesota (16-12), Ohio State (17-14) and Iowa (15-13) were Big Ten invitees.

The other 20-win teams were Boston University (20-10), Illinois Chicago (21-8), Kent State (21-9), Valparaiso (20-10) and Louisiana-Lafayette (20-8).

Also invited: Eastern Washington (18-12), Cal Santa Barbara (18-13), Iowa State (16-13), Texas Tech (18-12), Drexel (19-11), Brown (17-11), Fairfield (19-11), Siena (19-11), Western Michigan (19-10), Tennessee (17-11), Hawaii (19-11), Nevada (18-13) and Wichita State (18-11).

NIT