NCAA Expands Final Two to Final Four, Madness Ensues!

Throwing you a bender because I just thought you should know...

68 teams took to the courts this March to try and advance for the chance to play in front of almost 75,000 fans for the NCAA Basketball Championship. They will battle through six rounds of games, play in front of thousands of fans in huge venues, and be subject to a media crush they have never seen before.

It didn't quite start out this way. In fact, it wasn't even run by the NCAA that first year. The National Association of Basketball Coaches invited eight teams to compete for that first title.

The tournament started on March 17, 1939 and was whittled "all the way" down to the Final Two for the March 27 finale. Slightly more compact than the March 13, 2012 to April 2 schedule for this year.

There were only two rounds of off site playoffs before the "Final Two" game was held at Northwestern. The Ohio State Buckeyes advanced through the East region, beating Wake Forest and Villanova. Oregon beat Texas and Oklahoma to earn their trip to Evansville and Patten Gymnasium.

The Patten Gymnasium was built in 1910 and was considered by many contemporaries to be one of the finest athletic facilities in the world. A crowd of almost 5,500 turned out to watch the game. Since turnout for the Final Two was disappointing, the National Association of Basketball Coaches turned future operation of the tournament over to the NCAA.

The NCAA championship game would be the last basketball contest played in Patten; it would be demolished to make way for construction of Northwestern’s new multi-million dollar engineering building. Imagine an arena being used today for a Final Four site that is destroyed afterward to make room for an academic building!

For that first title tilt, the Pacific Coast Conference champion Oregon Ducks were nicknamed the “Tall Firs” and featured their 6-8 All-America center Slim Wintermute. The Big Ten Champion Buckeyes were much shorter overall but were relying on speed and execution to overcome the height difference. Oregon won 46-33. Ohio State's lone consolation was that All-America forward Jimmy Hull was named the tournament's outstanding player with 58 points in three games.

For the first 12 years of the tournament, only eight teams were invited to participate. The NCAA was originally a tournament mostly among conference winners. The rival NIT Tournament was open to everyone and many of the Eastern teams, who were mainly independents, preferred the reduced travel of playing closer to home in the NIT. It also carried the advantage of playing in New York City which provided tremendous media exposure for players and coaches during an era where college basketball coverage was limited.

So the premise remains the same, a single elimination tournament for the yearly championship and Ohio State returns to the final weekend again, 73 years later to try and avenge that original loss. The setting, the coverage and the opponents are all much larger now, but somewhere in Columbus, a Buckeye fan filled out their bracket with OSU on the championship line, just like in 1939. Hopefully this time they are correct.

 All this because I know more about nothing...