The Crown ended up taking a bunch of crappy teams. DePaul? Colorado? Arizona St.? These are all awful teams that would never have been invited to the NIT in prior years.
In the Big Ten, Indiana, Ohio State, Northwestern, Iowa, and Rutgers all announced beforehand that they would not be playing in the Crown. I assume the Big 12 and Big East were similar, which is why the Crown ended up with the teams mentioned above.
As a result, I think the Crown watered down both tournaments so that the actual good remaining teams didn't want to participate in either tournament. The timing of the Crown conflicts with the transfer portal, so many of the teams that declined an invitation expressed concerns that they wouldn't have enough bodies to participate.