*FAN SUBMISSION by Mike Griffen of Connecticut. Follow him on Twitter @NML_Sports.*
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It is hard to deny the ineptitude and inherent avarice of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and their almost Machiavellian tyranny over the athletes whom they are supposedly there to support. In today’s sport’s landscape football is king; it’s where the money is. This single fact has lead not only to the joke of a championship system found in FBS football, but also caused all other college sports to undergo large-scale conference restructuring. The results include the dissolution of historic conferences such as Big East basketball.
But there is one thing, dare I say the only thing, that they continue to get right year after year; one thing that even the complete fracture of the collegiate athletic landscape cannot touch: the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
The excitement and unpredictability of the Big Dance is unmatched in the world of sports, or anywhere else for that matter. It has it all: from inspiring underdog stories to heartbreaking defeats to incredible displays of leadership, drive and talent. It is the crapshoot of filling out a bracket, putting in all the research and knowledge at your disposal only to finish at the bottom of your pool, while Grandma comes in first with her color based system of predictions.
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It’s the pandemonium of Lorenzo Charles’ putback jam to win the Championship and Jimmy V running around the court looking for somebody to hug. The thrill of watching a player like Kemba Walker put a team on his back and lead them to the title, buzzer beaters by guys you’ve never heard of from schools you didn’t know existed (see: Northwestern State, 2006), huge upsets of perennial title contenders – the list is infinite. But the NCAA Men’s Championship hasn’t always been the spectacle that it is today. To understand what makes this spectacle so special, we must return to its origins.
In 1939, at the historic Patton Gymnasium on the campus of Northwestern University, the Oregon Ducks won their first and only NCAA Championship, defeating the Ohio State Buckeyes 46-33 in a game that closely resembled a fifth grade recess pick-up game. More significant however, is the fact that the Ducks had won the title in the inaugural NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament, then known as the NABC Championship Tournament after its founders, the National Association of Basketball coaches.
The tourney featured eight teams in its first year, including many programs that have remained highly successful over the past the past seven and a half decades (Oklahoma, Texas, Villanova). The basic format of the tournament was the same as today’s: a single elimination, lose-and-go-home
Not to diminish the Ducks’ achievement, but in 1939 the fledgling tournament wasn’t the most sought after destination for big time college basketball programs. In 1939, the National Invitational Tournament held that distinction.
Today we think of the NIT Championship as a consolation prize of sorts; a trophy for the best team that hadn’t done enough to warrant a chance to compete for the real title. Back then however, although the NIT had been formed only a year before, its victor was widely considered more of a national champion over the official title holder, the winner of the NCAA Championship. Major schools often turned down offers from to participate in the NCAA Tourney, opting for the NIT.
Poorly structured, not highly regarded, and in dire need of financial assistance, it seemed as if the NABC Championship might fold after only one season. Then the NABC made a successful appeal to the NCAA. The NCAA would cover fiscal considerations for the event and compensation for previous one for the NABC to the tune of only $2,531 ($42, 592 adjusted.) Little did they know of the impact and implications of the agreement they had made.The tourney was subsequently renamed the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship and by the mid-1960s it had become one of the most profitable and popular sporting events in the world.
In 1966, the NCAA Tournament was the platform for one of the most influential events in basketball’s storied history and a major step forward in the civil rights movement that was changing the nation. Legendary Texas Western (now know as UTEP) coach Don Haskins broke the racial barrier within the college basketball world by recruiting six African-American player and putting an all-black starting line-up on the court. The team went 28-1 and won the National Championship over Pat Riley and the all-white Kentucky Wildcats. The Miners’ victory that season cemented the African American player’s position in the college game and in the basketball community.
The 1966 Texas Western team also holds the distinction of being the only team to capture a national title during the UCLA Bruins’ decade long reign over NCAA Basketball. From 1964 to 1973, UCLA head coach John Wooden led his team to nine titles (adding his 10th in 1975.) On the backs of stars like Lew Alcindor, Bill Walton, Sidney Wicks, and Jamaal Wilks, the Wizard of Westwood managed to establish the most dominant decade of basketball in the history of the game and arguably in the history of collegiate sports.
From 1975 to 1984, the tournament was caught in a state of flux as the NCAA attempted to resolve issues pertaining to the qualification and entry who had not won their conference. In 1970, the South Carolina Gamecocks, who had gone 14-0 in conference play, did not receive an invitation after failing to win the SEC title. In 1971 the #2 USC Trojans were left out, followed by the #3 Maryland Terrapins two seasons later. It was clear a format change was necessary and the NCAA finally made the adjustment allowing at-large bids before the beginning of the 1974-75 season.
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But the adjustment period was rather lengthy and somewhat turbulent. The popularity and appeal of the spring classic was skyrocketing and so was the profit produced by the event. So, despite a bevy of exhilarating postseason performances during that period (Magic vs. Bird, Jim Valvano and Wolfpack’s improbably title run, etc.), the NCAA decided to expand the number of teams invited from 34 in 1975 to 53 by 1984. The following season they settled on the format we know today: 64 teams divided into four regions, each with a ranking from 1 through 16.
In 1985, the very first year of the 64 team era, the eighth-seeded Villanova Wildcats, who had finished the season 25-10, defeated the mighty Georgetown Hoyas in one of the most perfectly executed games in tournament history. ‘Nova shot a blistering 78.6% from the field on 22-28 shooting and the Wildcats took home their first and only National Championship. To this day, the 1985 Villanova team, a team which might have not even made the tournament a decade earlier, remains the lowest-ranked team ever to win the title.
The curtain on a new era of college basketball had just been opened and directly behind it was an exhilarating, unpredictable masterpiece. In the 19 years since Villanova’s monumental victory the NCAA Tournament has maintained its basic form and composition with but has undergone a couple changes.
The tremendous success of the tournament, the television contracts which produce an annual profit of $500 million, and the fact that for once they had done something that nobody was upset about, was not enough to mitigate the inherent money-driven nature of the NCAA.
In 2001 a minor change was made with the addition of the first “play-in” game in the 64-team era. The game pitted the 64th and 65th teams admitted into the tournament, with the winner advancing to face the top seed. As of the conclusion of the first two rounds of this year’s tournament, 16 seeds are a cumulative 0-120 against 1 seeds, so the effect of the change was rather negligible. But it laid the groundwork for more tinkering.
In 2011, a decade after the addition of the play-in game, the NCAA made the decision to expand the field to a total of 68 teams. Three more play-in games were added, one more 16 v 16 match-up and two with seeds ranging from 11 to 13. The decision was highly criticized at the time but most fans viewed it to be better than the originally proposed expansions.
After the conclusion of the 2010 Tournament, the NCAA and its president Mark Emmert decided that they were not satisfied with the current success of the Tournament. They wanted more.
There was a great deal of speculation as to just how drastic the proposed expansion would be (at one point the potential total number of teams was as high as 128.) Eventually they sought a change to a 96 teams field. We have CBS/Turner networks to thank for preserving the perfection of the current format: they promptly turned it down and managed to come to a mutual agreement with the NCAA of 68 teams.
Despite the initial trepidation of many fans, the NCAA came out looking good on the other side. That year, Virginia Commonwealth, an 11 seed that many people (see: Dick Vitale) did not believe deserved to be in, made a run all the way to the Final Four while having to earn one more victory than the other teams. Butler, an 8 seed, made it to the National Championship game for the second straight year, and UConn, after fighting through an average regular season, ripped through the Big East Tournament and the NCAA’s on their way to an 11-game win streak to end the year and the programs third National Championship.
For now 68 is the magic number. But who knows how long that will last.
Excellent article, Mike!