Post-Season Tournaments Have Intertwined Past
NIT and NCAA Championships Have Similar History in Men's Basketball
As March rolls around, sports fans’ thoughts start drifting toward the NCAA men’s basketball season and the post-season tournaments that have come to be known as March Madness. The main event of the March spectacle is the NCAA Men’s Tournament followed by what now is viewed as the NCAA’s little brother, the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). But it was not always that way.
The histories of the NCAA Men’s Tournament and the NIT have followed much of the same path from their creation, right up to the current day. And while the NCAA Tournament is the more prestigious tournament now, the NIT was once the more sought after title.
The Beginning of College Basketball Tournaments
As the older of the two tournaments, the NIT was started in 1938 by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association and featured six teams. Temple won the first ever tournament championship with the inventor of basketball Dr. James Naismith handing out the first trophy. The entire tournament was played at Madison Square Garden, which was the case until 1977 when the tournament played opening round games at different campus sites.
The NCAA got into the act the following year, hosting an eight-team competition, with Oregon knocking off Ohio State to secure the crown. The games were played in sites across the country with the championship held in Evanston, Ill.
One Team Two Tournaments
Over the years both tournaments grew as the NIT joined its counterpart by expanding to an eight-team field in 1941. But the setup of the tournament was not the only thing the two organizations shared. Throughout the 40s and 50s, teams regularly participated in both tournaments. In 1944, the University of Utah was eliminated in the first round of the NIT but entered the NCAA and ended up winning the title. Kentucky copied the feat in 1949, taking the NCAA crown and in 1950 the City College of New York became the first and only team to claim both the NIT and NCAA tournament trophies.
Although some teams chose to play in both events, others opted to play in just the NIT and forgo the NCAA tournament. The main reason behind that move was a rule in the NCAA Tournament that only one school from each conference could participate excluding some very strong programs. The most notable of those teams to bolt the NCAA was Al MacGuire led Marquette in 1970.
NCAA Takes the Lead
In 1975, though, everything changed. After No. 4 ranked Maryland fell in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship to top-ranked North Carolina State the year before, and therefore could not be eligible for the NCAA tournament, the tournament committee decided to make a change.
Expanding the field to 32 teams, the committee moved to allow more than one team from a conference to participate and creating at-large selections for the first time. And four years later, the tournament again expanded adding eight more teams and going to a seeding system for the first time.
In 1985, the tournament adopted a 64-team field and that same year, eight-seed Villanova upset top-seeded and defending champion Georgetown to become the lowest seed ever to win the title.
During this time, the NCAA Tournament surpassed the NIT as the most prestigious of the two championships and became the main symbol of March Madness.
The NIT's New Role
The NIT continued to operate in its new role and expanded to 40 teams in 2002, but later returned to the 32-team format in 2007. In 2005, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association, the NCAA bought the rights to the NIT and began administering the tournament.
Although the two tournaments are currently run by the same organization, the championships have a distinctly different feel. While the NCAA tournament is played in large arenas in front of fans from multiple schools, the NIT has kept its tradition of playing games on the campuses themselves with the semifinals and finals still being played in New York City. But through their differences, both tournaments contribute to the basketball fans’ paradise that is March Madness.
Tipoff at the 2008 NIT Championship game
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Tony Gaffney of UMASS dunks during last year's NIT
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