On March 27, 1939, the first NCAA Tournament ever ended at Patten Gymnasium at Northwest University in Evanston, Illinois. It was on the day that the Oregon Ducks played against the Ohio State Buckeyes for the NCAA Tournament Championship. The first NCAA Tournament was a sharp contrast to what it is like today.
Eight teams made the first ever NCAA Tournament with the field divided into two regions: East and West. It featured champions from seven conferences and one Independent that made up the teams that qualified. No seeds were given in the Tournament play until 40 years later, and the tourney began on March 17. The East bracket held their games in Philadelphia while the West bracket was held in San Francisco.
In the East bracket, Independent Villanova played against Ivy League champion Brown as the home town favorites. In the other matchup, Big Ten champion Ohio State played against Southern champion Wake Forest. Guard Johnny Krutulis had 14 points as Villanova beat Brown 42-30 to move onto the Final Four. Ohio State beat Wake Forest 64-52 to move on in their matchup. Then Jimmy Hull scored 28 points as Ohio State beat Villanova 53-36 in the East Final to clinch a spot in the Championship Game.
Meanwhile in the West bracket, Pacific Coast Conference champion Oregon played against Southwest champion Texas. In the other matchup, Big Eight champion Oklahoma played against Skyline champion Utah State. Oregon won their game against Texas 56-41 to make the Final Four. Oklahoma beat Utah State to move onto the Final Four. Then Oregon beat Oklahoma 55-37 in the West Final to move into the Championship Game.
Ohio State had finished the regular season with a 14-6 record. The Buckeyes were led by All-American Hull, who led the Big Ten in scoring as a senior and was captain on the team. Head coach Harold Olsen was in his 18th season at Ohio State, and was a big reason why the tournament was created after leading a movement to have it implemented.
Oregon had won their third consecutive Pacific Coast Conference in 1939. They finished the regular season with a 26-5 record, and were coached by Howard Hobson. Their top player in the Tournament was center Slim Wintermute. Hobson's team was referred to as the "Tall Firs" because their player average for height on the team was six feet which was considered very tall at the time.
Hull scored 58 points in the tournament, but that wasn't enough to beat Oregon as the Ducks won the Championship by the final score of 46-33. The Ducks' size was too much as they won the first ever NCAA Tournament in front of an estimated 5,500 fans.
While this marked the beginning of great things to come, the National Invitational Tournament(NIT) was in its third year, and was seen as the place where a true champion was crowned.
Less than two weeks later, Long Island University(LIU-Brooklyn), who finished the season undefeated at 24-0, won the second NIT. The Helms Foundation officially voted them as national champions.
Hull, who was named the Most Outstanding Player for the Tournament, said before his death that winning the Big Ten Conference title was more significant and that his team didn't even want to play in the inaugural event.
"We had just won our league title, which was the most important thing in our minds, and the state high school tournament was being played," said Hull. "We wanted to watch that."
Much of the reason the NIT was more prestigious and recognized was because it was held in New York at Madison Square Garden which garnered more attention. But a betting scandal to go along with NCAA Tournament expansion in 1950 changed the fortunes of college basketball.
Live television coverage of the tournament in the early 1950s changed the thinking of teams to bypass the NIT for the NCAA Tournament. The tournament expanded to 16 teams in 1950, and eventually reaching 64 by 1985. Now 65 teams with one play-in game and four regions with four No. 1 seeds take place every year.
The NCAA Tournament now selects automatic bids for all Division 1-A Conference Champions and the rest are at-large bids determined by a selection committee. Up until 1975, only Conference winners played in the tournament which led to controversy, and eventually, an expansion of the field of teams.
Until 1981, a third place game took place and a regional third place game went on until 1975. Now it is strictly a single elimination tournament with no consolation games played.
In the 1980s, mainstream and media began referring to the tournament as "March Madness" because it contested mainly in that month. It is also called the "Big Dance" because of crowning a national champion now while the NIT does not any longer.
Since 1991, CBS televises all games of the tournament except the play-in game which takes place on ESPN. ESPN also carried opening round games in the 1980s, and this also helped the tourney to become one of the most anticipated sporting events in the United States.
Even though it had humble beginnings, the NCAA Tournament has seen dynasties like UCLA become household names while many other underdog teams have pulled off amazing upsets, too. Cinderella teams have also become well known to the public after making a winning run or a win against a top-ranked opponent.
For the last several years, the term "bracket busting" or "bracket busters" has become a popular slang term in the United States. Every year, millions of fans and even well-known celebrities, politicians, and athletes have participated in trying to accurately pick the winners of all games in the NCAA Tournament. The phenomenon known as "March Madness" creates a stir amongst college basketball fans every year, and betting casinos have been known to rake in serious revenue these days.
70 years ago, only 5,500 fans in Evanston, Illinois watched Oregon win the first NCAA Tournament when no one thought it had a chance of working. It was a time when Lou Gehrig's well-known story of being diagnosed with ALS dominated headlines and the country was still in the grips of the Great Depression. World War II also began in 1939 which continued to overshadow every headline in U.S. newspapers.
But because of innovative thinking and clever marketing of games on television as well as expansion of teams invited in, the NCAA Tournament survived and has become one of the most popular sporting events in U.S. sports history. March Madness has definitely made its mark in our society.
Thanks for viewing, and I hope you enjoyed today's sports history flashback!
3/28/2009 12:19:00 AM
David Funk
0 comments:
Post a Comment