The Final Four: The Pursuit of College Basketball Glory
One FROM THE BASEMENT TO THE BIG TIME A History of the College Basketball Championship There were no cameras no packed seats and no food vendors at Hamline University in St Paul Minnesota on February 9 1895 No fanfare of any kind No one could have known it at the time but in the basement of the university’s science building history was being made It wasn’t the splitting of the atom the discovery of genetics or the theory of relativity that made history that day in Science Hall It was a basketball game Basketball was a new sport invented by physical education teacher James Naismith less than four years earlier Hamline’s athletic director Ray Kaighn had played on Naismith’s first basketball team Kaighn brought the sport to Minnesota When he invited players from the nearby School of Agriculture part of the present-day University of Minnesota to campus for a friendly game the first intercollegiate basketball game was on Opposite page James Naismith center right invented basketball in 1891 7
There should be little surprise that a game played in the basement of a science building didn’t look much like the modern sport The teams played with nine players on each side and shot at peach baskets hung on the walls Even the final score a 9 3 victory for the visiting team would seem much too low to modern fans Yet a college tradition was born that day It wouldn’t take long before college basketball moved out of the basement and into the big time EVOLVING GAME Basketball rapidly grew in popularity Less than a year after that first college game in Minnesota the University of Iowa invited players from the University of Chicago for a contest This game looked a bit more like the sport fans love today It featured five players on each side and the scores actually reached double digits a 15 12 victory for Chicago Over the decades college basketball continued to grow Conferences emerged especially in the eastern United States and the rules evolved Still the game’s following could not match that of college football The shot clock had not yet been added to college basketball so teams could hold on to the ball as long as they liked without shooting To many fans the action was simply too slow and the scores too low THE 1904 OLYMPICS By the early 1900s basketball was getting worldwide notice It was added to the 1904 Olympic Games in St Louis Missouri Olympic officials invited top college teams to compete in a championship tournament Hiram College located in Hiram Ohio won the Olympic Intercollegiate World Championship 8 THE FINAL FOUR
While the lack of a shot clock contributed to low-scoring games what really held the game back was the style of play Players used two hands and kept both feet on the ground while shooting The shot was easy to defend and scoring was difficult This style led to many dull plodding contests In 1936 Stanford player Hank Luisetti thrilled fans and annoyed defenders with something that would change the game forever the one-handed jump shot Basketball historians agree that Luisetti wasn’t the first to attempt such a shot But he used it so well and with such flair that other players had no choice but to perfect it themselves Almost overnight the game changed It became faster more focused on scoring and more thrilling Hank Luisetti helped popularize basketball with his exciting style of play From the Basement to the Big Time 9
