NCAA Basketball Tournament: A History in Kansas City
The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, known as March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament in the United States that determines the national champion of men's college basketball at the Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Played primarily in March, the tournament consists of 68 teams and was first held in 1939.
The Tournament's Genesis and Early Years
The NCAA tournament began in March 1939 in response to the founding of the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) the previous year. The initial NIT offering was hailed as an artistic and financial success. College coaches pushed for a postseason championship tournament that did not depend on the preferences of New York sportswriters. They convinced the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) to approach the NCAA about sponsoring a national playoff.
The NCAA agreed to sanction the proposed tournament but declined to accept any financial responsibility. The first NCAA tournament included eight teams. Oregon captured the championship by defeating Ohio State, 46-33, in the finals at Northwestern University. The attendance for the three rounds of the tournament was a disappointing fifteen thousand, and the NABC suffered a loss of $2,531. Despite the shortfalls in attendance and income, the NCAA saw considerable promise in the tournament and accepted the request.
In 1940, the championship game drew ten thousand fans to watch Indiana rout Kansas in Kansas City, and the NCAA cleared a profit of more than $9,500. From those humble beginnings, the NCAA tournament gradually expanded in size and prestige. By 1953 the organization had decided to invite as many as twenty-three teams to participate, including fourteen conference champions who qualified automatically and up to nine independents chosen by the organization’s basketball committee.
The 1950s: College Basketball Gains Popularity
College basketball gained increased popularity and drew record crowds during the 1950s. The arrival of college hoops as a major gate attraction, however, did not immediately make the NCAA tournament a top-tier national sporting event. The key to the tournament’s eventual national appeal was television coverage, and at first networks and sponsors showed little interest.
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The NCAA's title game made its initial appearance on national television in 1954, but it was available only where local stations paid a syndicator for access. The NCAA charged the syndicator a mere $7,500 for rights. Local stations showed the championship contest between LaSalle College and Bradley University as a delayed broadcast.
The NCAA’s lean years in national television coverage continued until 1963, when a prosperous syndicator, Sports Network Incorporated (SNI), offered $150,000 for broadcast rights to the championship game for six years. It sold access to the 1963 title match-up to 125 stations. For the first time the NCAA championship was shown live in prime time on national television, and viewers were treated to a thrilling, overtime victory for Chicago of Loyola over the University of Cincinnati.
Television Coverage and Expansion
Nevertheless, the major networks continued to show disdain for the commercial appeal of college basketball. They changed their position only after a regular-season, made-for-television match-up between top-ranked UCLA and the second-ranked University of Houston in January 1968 was broadcast by another sports syndicator, the TVS Television Network. The game attracted 52,693 fans to Houston’s Astrodome stadium and an estimated television audience of twenty million, the largest in professional or college basketball history. Later that year, when the NCAA opened bidding for tournament broadcast rights, NBC won the contract by offering $500,000 for two years, which was ten times the average annual amount that SNI had paid. In 1972 the NCAA reached a new television income milestone when NBC agreed to a price of $1 million for two years.
The NCAA tournament had emerged as a top-drawer national sports event. It also seemed apparent to some insiders that the tournament’s format, which had been in place since 1953, needed improving. As early as 1970 Tom Scott, athletic director at Davidson College and chair of the NCAA’s basketball committee, took the lead in lobbying for changes. He urged that the tournament field be expanded to thirty-two teams and that worthy conference runners-up be eligible. He argued that expansion was advisable because of the growing number of NCAA members and of conferences that were clamoring for an automatic bid. Scott’s proposals received support from NCAA executive director Walter Byers and his staff, but they met strong opposition from other members of the basketball committee.
The events of the 1973-1974 season finally persuaded the NCAA to revise its rules. Coaches, athletic directors, fans, and writers complained about an unjust system when two excellent teams, Indiana University and the University of Southern California, failed to qualify for the tournament after placing second in their conference standings. Within five months after the 1973-1974 season ended, the NCAA voted, with little discussion or dissent, to allow two teams per conference to play in the tournament.
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The size of the tournament and the television money it commanded grew rapidly after 1974. The NCAA expanded the field to forty in 1979, then to forty-eight in 1980 (with no limit on the number of teams per conference), then to sixty-four in 1985, and finally to sixty-eight in 2011. The income it received increased even more dramatically-from the $48 million that CBS paid in 1981 for three years to the $10.8 billion that it, along with the Turner Broadcasting System, offered for fourteen years in 2011. The price that television networks were willing to pay was obviously tied to the enormous popularity of the tournament. Its appeal was enhanced after 1980 when ESPN, founded two years earlier, began to show early round games with their crowd-pleasing potential for upsets of powerful teams by lightly-regarded opponents.
Kansas City's Role in NCAA Tournament History
Kansas City has a rich history of hosting significant NCAA Tournament events, including multiple Final Fours. One memorable instance is the 1988 Final Four, held at Kemper Arena, which included the Kansas Jayhawks.
Don Pfannenstiel, an organizer for the Kansas City Organizing Committee, noted that the 1988 Final Four brought a great deal of excitement to the area and marked the 50th anniversary of the Final Four. Kansas won the 1988 tournament after beating the Oklahoma Sooners in the final.
The 1952 NCAA Tournament and Kansas's Championship Run
The 1952 NCAA Tournament saw the Kansas Jayhawks, led by coach Phog Allen, achieve national glory. Key moments from that season, many of which unfolded with Kansas City as a backdrop, include:
- Early Season Dominance: In December, Kansas showcased its offensive firepower, setting a single-game scoring record with 84 points. Clyde Lovellette emerged as a dominant force, scoring 42 points against SMU.
- Big Seven Conference Battles: Kansas faced tough competition within the Big Seven Conference. They narrowly escaped with an overtime victory against Kansas State in the semifinals of the Big Seven tournament. The Kansas City Times reported that Kansas was "never behind, but always on the brink of trouble," in the Big Seven tournament championship.
- Lovellette's Impact: Clyde Lovellette consistently delivered outstanding performances. In January, he scored 25 points against Oklahoma as Kansas secured its 11th win in a row.
- Championship Run: On a significant night in Lawrence, Kansas, the Jayhawks clinched the Big Seven championship outright and an NCAA berth as Clyde Lovellette set a record with 41 points. The Jayhawks and the Billikens both had their ragged moments," reported The Kansas City Times. Saint Louis led Kansas in the first quarter but the game was tied at halftime before the Jayhawks pulled away in the second half to win by 19. "[Clyde] Lovellette, with 18 points in the first half and in the last two periods, paced a Jayhawk attack that ran up a 24-point lead early in the first quarter at 65 to 41," reported the AP.
- Championship Victory: On March 26, 1952, Kansas defeated St. Louis 80-63 to win the NCAA tournament. Lovellette scored a game-high 33 points to earn tournament MVP honors. "The 6-foot 9-inch Lovellette ran his four-game NCAA playoff scoring total to 141 points," reported the AP. "He had broken the old record of 83 points in the first three games. It had been set by Don Sunderlage of Illinois last year.
Legacy and Future Events
Decades later, Kansas City stands poised to host other similar sporting events. The metro continues to be in the running to host the NFL Draft, World Cup, and NCAA women’s basketball Final Four.
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Katherine Holland of the Kansas City Sports Commission said now more than ever the city is ready to be home for big sporting events. Moving forward, Don Pfannenstiel said the legacy of the 1988 Final Four would remain in the metro.
Tournament Structure and Selection
The tournament consists of 68 teams competing in seven rounds of a single-elimination bracket. Thirty-two teams automatically qualify for the tournament by winning their conference tournament, played during the two weeks before the tournament, and thirty-six teams qualify by receiving an at-large bid based on their performance during the season.
The Selection Committee determines the at-large bids, ranks all the teams 1 to 68, and places the teams in the bracket, all of which is revealed publicly on the Sunday before the tournament, dubbed Selection Sunday by the media and fans.
The tournament is divided into four regions, with each region having sixteen to eighteen teams, and each region being named after the geographic area of the city hosting each regional semifinal and regional final (the tournament's third and 4th round overall). The tournament is played over three weekends, with two rounds occurring each weekend. Before the first weekend, eight teams compete in the First Four to advance to the first round. Two games pair the lowest-ranked conference champions and two games pair the lowest-ranked at-large qualifiers. The first and second rounds are played during the first weekend, the regional semifinals and regional finals during the second weekend, and the national semifinals and championship game during the third weekend. Regional rounds are branded as the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight and the third weekend is branded as the Final Four, all named after the number of teams remaining at the beginning of the round. All games, including the First Four, are scheduled so that teams will have one rest day between each game.
The Selection Committee, which includes conference commissioners and university athletic directors appointed by the NCAA, determines the bracket during the week before the tournament. To make the bracket, the Committee ranks the whole field from 1 to 68; these are referred to as the true seed. The committee then divides the teams amongst the four regions, giving each a seed between No. 1 and No. 16. The same four seeds in all the regions are referred to as the seed line (i.e. the No. 6 seed line). Eight teams are doubled up and compete in the First Four. Two of the paired teams compete for No. 16 seeds, and the other two paired teams are the last at-large teams awarded bids to the tournament and compete for a seed line in the No. 10 to No.
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