Butler, the N.C.A.A. tournament runner-up in 2010 and 2011, is leaving the Horizon League and joining the Atlantic 10 beginning with the 2013-14 season.
Pitt, last season's conference tournament runner-up, has also played a light schedule but has beaten Penn State and Ohio State of the Big Ten.
Stanford, the regular-season and tournament runner-up, will enter the N.C.A.A. tournament riding the surging play of Brook and Robin Lopez.
Barry Collier, whose Butler team nearly upset the N.C.A.A. tournament runner-up, Florida, in the first round this season, was hired yesterday as coach of Nebraska.
Last year's tournament runner-up, No. 7 Florida (18-5), beat No. 22 Tennessee Sunday for its third consecutive victory and seventh in its last eight.
The penalty could be as much as $180,000 and a relinquishing of Duke's 1999 National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament runner-up trophy.
Lurking between the extremes is someone like Chez Reavie at No. 8. His formula is elementary: first place in the tournament, runner-up for anyone but Simpson and Johnson.
Among the other bubble teams who dropped into the N.I.T. were Missouri State (25-8), the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season champion; Dayton 22-133), the Atlantic-10 tournament runner-up; and St. Mary's (25-8), the West Coast Conference regular-season champion.
Earlier, the unseeded Kevin Painter, the tournament runner-up to Phil Taylor in 2004, checked out with a bullseye from 124 to beat the 29th seed, Jamie Caven, 3-1 and the 30th seed, Jamie Lewis, held off Mick McGowan's fightback to prevail 3-2 aftense tense deciding set.
North Dakota (16-17-2, 11-15-2), last year's N.C.A.A. tournament runner-up, had tied Denver, 3-3, before KEVIN DOELL scored with 8.7 seconds left in overtime, giving Denver the victory in the first of the two-game series.
St. John's Coach Mike Jarvis also didn't mind that the committee moved his team to the West as a No. 2. In 1993, Jarvis took his George Washington team to the region and almost upset the eventual tournament runner-up, Michigan, which had Chris Webber, Jalen Rose and the rest of the Fab Five.
