In 1939 a small basketball tournament was held, involving only 8 teams. This small tournament would later go on to become one of the biggest sports cultural phenomenons in history.. In today’s video, we’ll take a look back at how March Madness all got started and how a rival tournament nearly stole it’s thunder as the preeminent college basketball tournament.
Early Beginnings
The Tournament’s origins date back to 1939, when Ohio State’s basketball coach Harold Olsen came up with the idea for the tournament. The original competition consisted of eight teams that were selected to represent geographical areas. One major complaint of the tournament’s early years was that many of the college conferences were considered a part of the same geographical area, because of this, the tournament left out a lot of highly-ranked programs. From 1939 up until 1950, the eight teams were separated into East and West brackets. The winner’s of the Eastern and Western brackets would then face each other in a winner takes all championship game. For the first edition of the tournament, Harold Olsen’s Ohio State faced Oregon in the championship game. Oregon prevailed, winning 46-33, to take home the first ever NCAA Basketball Tournament championship.
The tournament wasn’t always known as “March Madness”, but the phrase “March Madness” can be traced back to the time during the very beginning of the tournament. An assistant executive secretary and coach at Illinois High School Association, Henry V. Porter was thought to be the first person to coin the term. On the fans’ excitement surrounding Illinois’ annual statewide basketball tournament, Porter was quoted saying, “little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.” This quote was taken from a 1939 issue of Illinois High School Athlete magazine, which also happened to be the first year of the NCAA Basketball tournament. There is some debate as to whether or not Porter said the term “March Madness” first. Etymologist Barry Popik stated that the phrase was also used to describe an earlier tournament, the 1931 state high school basketball tournament in Indiana. In any case, “March Madness’ ‘ wouldn’t catch on and become a household name until legendary sportscaster Brent Musburger popularized the term in the early 1980’s.
Jumping back to the early days of the tournament, In 1946, the competition introduced a consolation game to determine the third place winner, which was held typically the same day as the championship game. One of the special traditions of March Madness is the cutting of the backboard net after winning a championship game. In 1947, North Carolina State’s coach Everett Case was thought to be the first person to bring the tradition to the collegiate level when after winning the Southern Conference Championship he decided to cut down the backboard net as a souvenir. Case most likely started this tradition when he was a high school coach in Indiana, and after 1947, the net cutting tradition began to grow throughout college basketball. In 1951 the tournament expanded to 16 teams, and later 22 teams in 1953. The tournament’s size would actually vary over the course of the next two decades, ranging from 22 to 25 teams. In its early years the NCAA tournament was often overshadowed by the more popular National Invitational Tournament, or NIT, that was first played in 1938. The competition between the two tournaments would come to a head later on, when the battle for television rights and prominence would pit the two events against one another.
Big Changes
In the early 1970’s, the NCAA tournament enacted two major changes to how the tournament would run. The first coming in 1971, when the NCAA announced that teams who declined to take part in their tournament would be banned from partaking in any other post-season tournaments. This rule came to be in part because a year earlier, Marquette decided to decline their invitation to the NCAA tournament in favor of playing in the NIT competition instead (a tournament that they’d go on to win). Marquette declined their invite because they felt slighted by their regional placement in the bracket. They had been slotted in the “Midwest” bracket, rather than their preferred “Mideast” bracket which was geographically closer to the school. As crazy as that might sound today, Marquette’s coach Al McGwuire reasoned that the NIT was held in New York, at Madison Square Garden. This provided a much bigger media market, and exposure to the young college kids playing in the game, that they may not have received playing in the NCAA tournament (with the final being held at College Park, in Maryland that year).
The other major change came in 1975, when the NCAA opened up the tournament to allow multiple teams from the same conference to compete. Due to this change, the tournament would undergo major expansions over the next several years. Starting in 1975, it expanded to 32 teams, 40 teams in 1979, and 48 teams in 1980. In 1983, the NCAA introduced a seventh round, with four play-in games that brought the total number of teams to 52. The following season, the tournament added an additional play-in game, with a total of 53 teams competing. For the National Invitational Tournament, the NCAA’s ban on other competitions, the expansion to allow more teams, and NBC moving the semi-finals to Saturday and the championship game to Monday night (which became ratings powerhouse) proved to be too much for the struggling NIT to try and compete with the NCAA. By late 1970s, the NCAA’s March Madness had pulled away from the NIT in popularity, and would only continue to grow from there.
During this period, a few other changes were made to the tournament as well. For example, a staple of the tournament, team seeding, was first introduced by the Division I Basketball Committee during the 1978 tournament (which caused some controversy at the time, with some media outlets declaring the seeding as unfair). Also, the third place consolation game that had been part of the competition for decades, was fully eliminated in 1981. Finally, a women’s edition to the tournament was first introduced in 1982, marking a historic moment for women’s collegiate sports. The tournament’s inception laid the foundation for the growth and recognition of women’s collegiate basketball, providing female athletes with an opportunity to showcase their skills, compete for a national title, and contribute to the broader evolution of women’s sports. The success of the 1982 tournament played a pivotal role in establishing the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament as an annual tradition that continues to captivate audiences and celebrate the achievements of women in collegiate basketball.
Today’s Tournament
In 1985, the tournament expanded once more, adding 11 teams for a total of 64 spots in the competition. With the new additions, the NCAA eliminated all byes and play-ins that had been in the previous tournaments. For the first time, the champion would have to play six games throughout the six rounds in order to win the tournament. Since the 1956 tournament, the NCAA had used multiple geographical regions within the East/West format to separate teams into brackets, for example, regions like the West, Midwest, East, and Mideast. But starting in 1985, the NCAA renamed the geographic regions, and would continue to alter them routinely between 1985 to 2012. The mideast region became Southeast, and then was shortened to just South in 1998. For a time in the mid-2000’s, the brackets were named after their host cities, rather than the geographical location. For instance, the “Atlanta Regional” and “Phoenix Regional” in 2004, and the “Chicago Regional” and “Austin Regional” in 2005. By the late 1990’s, the popularity of the tournament had risen to new levels. The demand to watch the games on TV and in person reached all-time highs. Because of this, in 1997 the NCAA began playing games during the Final Four round in much larger stadiums built for football and baseball due to the increased interest.
One of the many reasons the tournament has been so successful is their willingness to continue tinkering and updating the rules to allow for more progress and growth. Here’s a quick rundown of just a number of those changes: In 2001, a new play-in game was brought in to accommodate the newly formed Mountain West Conference (that started in 1999). The NCAA expanded the tournament to 65 teams by creating a play-in game between the two lowest seeded ranked #16 teams. In 2004, The tournament made a change to how the number #1 seeded teams get matched up, in order to prevent two top ranked teams from meeting each other before the finals.
In 2005, the NCAA’s old rival, the National Invitation Tournament was bought by the NCAA. This was the result of a settlement by the NCAA in an antitrust lawsuit brought on by the NIT’s previous owners the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association. In 2011, there had been speculation about massive expansion (possibly going up to as many as 128 teams), but ultimately the tournament expanded to 68 teams after signing a new TV contract with Turner Sports and CBS sports. In 2022, the Women’s tournament expanded to 68 teams, matching the men’s side for the first time.
The legacy of March Madness extends far beyond the hardwood courts, encapsulating the essence of college basketball fervor and sporting unpredictability. With iconic buzzer-beaters, Cinderella stories, and the emergence of future basketball legends, March Madness has ingrained itself in the American sports psyche. Even US presidents have gotten in on the action of filling out a March Madness bracket. The legacy of the tournament is a testament to the enduring appeal of collegiate basketball, transcending generations and providing an annual spectacle that unites fans in the celebration of competition, sportsmanship, and the unpredictable beauty of the game.
So what did you guys think about all of the changes to the March Madness tournament over the years? Do you prefer a 68 team tournament, or do you think it’s too big as it is? Or would you like to see more teams added? Let me know in the comments below!
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