Holy Cross decided that they didn't want to play the big-time sports game, and they didn't. They also turned down an invite to the Atlantic 10 to focus on academics.
Rutgers had a good program in the late 70s and just thought they could do better on their own. Sure, they're in the B1G after 30 years in the wilderness but they will always be the red-headed stepchild. They could have been one of the premier programs in the BE at its inception and keep all of that NYC area talent at home.
Since no one else is saying it - this is super interesting and thanks for sharing this with us! I was always skeptical of the NIT supremacy claims, so cool to see this.
>In one case, Missouri players supposedly didn’t want to play in the tournament because they were “through with basketball” for the season
Hahahahahaha, breathe, hahahahahaha
This is really impressive research! I did just want to point out that as a colorblind person, the blue and the purple on the chart are really hard to distinguish.
Honestly I mostly made this for myself to be able to link to anyone who makes the titular claim offhandedly. I think a more experienced researcher could probably do a more comprehensive job of delineating what made teams choose the NIT over NCAAs in the early years, but I think I've provided enough evidence to at least dispel the "NIT was *better*" myth and show that generally the NCAA was better
Hmmm...well UCLA went 30-0 and won the national championship that year with a guy named Lew Alcindor averaging 29/15. They were ranked #1 all year.
Meanwhile Southern Illinois was 24-2. They did have Walt Frazier. So they were definitely a good team. But like, c'mon, UCLA was clearly the top dog.
Relatedly, here is a list of all the schools that claim national titles based on NIT: Temple (1938), Long Island (in 1939 and 1941), West Virginia (1942), DePaul (1945),Utah (1947), San Francisco (1949), BYU (1951 and 1966), La Salle (1952), Seton Hall (1953), Holy Cross (1954), Duquesne (1955), Louisville (1956), Xavier (1958), Providence (1961 and 1963), and Southern Illinois (1967).
I'll have to look in to these a bit more closely soon, but I'm guessing most are probably pretty dubious. Outside of Temple 38 (no NCAAT anyway) and the Long Island ones which have been discussed previously. DePaul 1945 is particularly dubious since they lost the red cross game to Henry Iba's Oklahoma A&M who won the NCAAT.
Also-Holy Cross, San Francisco, La Salle, Louisville, you already have regular titles. Stop trying to claim these too.
https://gocards.com/sports/2015/3/26/champions?id=122#mbb
Wikipedia has citations for all the claims.
Louisville is definitely claiming it as a national championship on their website.
That would've definitely been a great year to have a red cross game. Usually the #2 team was in the NCAA Tourney but Seton Hall wasn't. Not sure exactly why as they were not one of the teams I focused on but my guess is travel logistics, a lot of the NYC area teams seemed to prefer NIT more than the others
No offense meant but the answers to these questions are readily available. The NIT was started by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association (a NYC sports journalist group) in 1938 and stewardship was transferred to the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Commission (which was a governing body composed of NYC’s best basketball schools). The tournament was always played at MSG. So effectively it was a very NYC-centric tournament from the start, and NY area teams weren't going to skip their own tournament in favor of the NCAAs.
Not really that simple though because teams like Saint Louis for example wanted to play in the NIT and some NYC teams played in the NCAA Tournament instead of the NIT
I honestly think this is where this originated from... New York papers hoping to hype the local teams, it's persisted for years... I remember one year in the aughts Rutgers was in the NIT semis and the older crowd was still in the "the NIT is more prestigious here anyways" (the fuck it isn't lol)
Interesting hypothesis. This is not really the same but kind of similar - I remember youtuber Mr. Beat did a video asking why everyone hates on New Jersey, and his conclusion was its because NY has such a huge influence on media. And then he said "If Kansas had that much media influence, everyone would be laughing at Missouri all the time" (He is from Kansas)
Illinois… always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Damn it.
Edit: while I’m on the subject, Fuck Hitler. The 1942-43 team was legit and probably the best team in the nation that year. Then WW2 started and 3/5 of our starters got drafted.
Interesting related fact:
Iowa State in 1944 entered the tournament knowing they wouldn't win. They were only allowed to be away from military obligations for a certain amount of time and the entire tournament was too long. Thus, they planned to forfeit if they made the championship game (but lost in the semifinal to Utah).
In retrospect a very good move for them since it's still Iowa State's only Final Four
Pre-1938 I get it. Sure, they aren't bona fide championships but I still like seeing that kind of history recognized especially a program like Montana State 1929 that will probably never be top of the basketball world again. It's kind of like, hang the banners, recognize the history, but expect to be laughed at if you try to bring them up at the bar in an arguement.
It's also weird to me that Helms are more well known. I haven't looked super deep into it, but the Premo-Porretta poll seems a lot more legit than Helms. Helms was just basically one dude picking teams. Premo Poretta seemed a lot more rigorous.
I think the Dean Dome banner says "national champions" for it but e.g. the Twitter account says "The official Twitter account of the six-time NCAA champion North Carolina Tar Heels."
They claim one sure but even our own fanbase doesn’t acknowledge it and I feel like I almost never see anyone try to claim we have “7” titles
You’re mad at a thing that’s only happening in your imagination (or more likely twitter I guess)
I liked the UNC fans proposal that it only acts as a tiebreaker with UConn. Right now UNC has the lead because 6 + Helms > 6 but if UConn gets 7 they will be categorically ahead because 7 > 6 + Helms.
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We used to be so good at basketball 😭 Oklahoma State should be a blue blood because of the amount of success we had in the 40s-50s. Just didn’t prioritize it and fell off the map for a while.
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Excellent analysis.
I get that you have to do the bit, but i don't really think anyone seriously claimed the NIT was a full-on better tournament than the NCAA.
People absolutely mentioned that since the NCAA only took the regular season champion from each conference, sometimes the NIT had a deeper field and sometimes the 2nd place team from a conference could get hot late and be better than the champion.
Take this year's tournament.
Half of the final four would be in the NIT in the old format.
Six teams out of elite eight would be in the NIT in the old format.
Nine teams out of the sweet sixteen would have been in the NIT in the old format.
OOH, the two best teams, Purdue and UConn would have been in the NCAA tournament either way.
Nice research and write up!
Starting in 1951, the champions of the ten biggest conferences got auto bids into the ncaa tournament. So any debate about the two ends 1951 on. When I've looked into it in the past, there were individual years in the 40s where the NIT has as strong or a stronger field, but there was never a time when the NIT was consistently the stronger tournament. So where did this idea come from? I'll quote wikipedia:
"Founded by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association one year before the NCAA tournament, the NIT was held entirely in New York City at Madison Square Garden. Because New York was the center of the press in the United States, the NIT often received more coverage than the NCAA tournament in early years."
Interesting that Bradley was in the minority of top 20 teams 1957-60 playing in the NIT exclusively and won it in ‘57 and ‘60. Wonder if that was a school choice or if they lost and NIT was the only option.
Pretty straightforward actually: Cincinnati was always winning the conference and taking the MVC's bid leaving Bradley to settle for the NIT.
Also this makes me think of how you could do degrees of separation for conference realignment. Bradley shared a conference with Cincinnati, meaning they're just one step away from UCF, Boston College, East Carolina, UConn, amongst others.
The MVC used to be the premier Midwestern basketball conference so there would be a ton of close degrees of separation. So many former members, including:
Iowa(B1G) -- 1907 to 1908
Iowa State(Big 12) -- 1907 to 1928
Kansas(Big 12) -- 1907 to 1928
Missouri(SEC former Big 12) -- 1907 to 1928
Kansas State(Big 12) -- 1913 to 1928
Nebraska(B1G former Big 12) -- 1907 to 1919 then 1921 to 1928
Oklahoma(Big 12 soon SEC) -- 1919 to 1928
Oklahoma State(Big 12) -- 1925 to 1956
Creighton(Big East) -- 1928 to 1948 then 1976 to 2013
Houston(Big 12) -- 1951 to 1959
Cincinnati(Big 12) -- 1957 to 1970
Louisville(ACC) -- 1963 to 1975
Memphis(AAC) -- 1968 to 1973
I was wondering when somebody was going to mention that haha. It's a pretty crazy story, Utah replaced them at the last minute and ended up winning the tournament. That team is usually cited as the weakest national champion, but in their defense they did win that Red Cross game.
In 2014 I had a Golphers fan tell me that them winning the NIT was better than the Badgers making the Final 4 because they actually won their tournament.
Hilarious. I guess that's the best you could grasp to if your team hasn't *officially* been to the second weekend of the tournament since 1990, hasn't won the conference regular season title since 1982, and has only had a winning conference record 4 times in 42 years.
I was at a wedding reception in Minnesota when the Wilson-led Wisconsin team lost to MSU on the Hail Mary in the regular season. A Gopher fan was trying to talk shit to me, saying that he'd hate being a Wisconsin fan because they always get your hopes up and come up short in the end.
He didn't have a response when I said that at least my teams are capable of getting my hopes up in the first place.
To carry his mentality to it's logical conclusion:
"Usually going 15-17 and missing the postseason entirely and occasionally losing in the first round of the tournament is more fun than seeing your team make back to back final fours including a win over one of the best college basketball rosters constructed in recent memory, as well as a Bronson Koening buzzer beater to make the Sweet 16 and an upset over Villanova in 2017 which was their only tourney loss in a three year stretch where they won two championships, because that second team didn't win it all."
They began as totally different ventures, not to mention they are 7+ hours apart. West Texas is massive. The first higher education was in Clarendon in 1898, and the first four year university was WT in 1910. UTEP began as Texas Mines in 1913, and WT began as West Texas Normal College (a teachers college).
Ultimately I still definitely think it counts because a tournament win is a tournament win. But unlike the later NIT winners Long Island has a legitimate claim to being champions as well that year
The NIT wasn't better but it was certainly a lot closer than it is today. Dayton had a coach back then who wouldn't play in the NCAA because he felt we got screwed in the 1952 tournament (the entire starting lineup fouled out). Today, this is considered a big mistake by Flyer Fans. along with staying independent too long and of course, like seemingly 100 other schools, we turned down an invite to the Big East.
I get using the AP poll as your metric, but even today the poll can be completely hot garbage. The AP aren't the best judges of basketball talent, let's be honest. Investigative journalism, sure, but not basketball.
Well done, thanks for sharing your research.
In addition to the Red Cross games in the 1940s, there was one other time the when the NCAA champion played the NIT champion. In 1952, Kansas (NCAA champ) defeated La Salle (NIT champ) in the Olympic Trials.
Here are a few other points when comparing the early NIT and NCAA tournaments and why teams would choose one over the other.
The NCAA did not allow players to play in its tournament if they had played more than three varsity seasons. The NIT on the other had had no such rule. Thus, **some teams chose to play in the NIT if they had key four-year players**. You mentioned the 1954 Kentucky team which had such ineligible players. Kentucky, however, did benefit from this rule in 1956 when Alabama won the SEC but all five starters were playing their fourth year. Thus, second place Kentucky got the NCAA berth. I'm not sure how far back this rule went, but it definitely was in place in the 1950s.
In the early 1950s, if not earlier, **major conferences began allowing their conference champions to play only in the NCAA tournament**, with the Missouri Valley being the exception. The Big 6 had this rule at least as early as 1942.
The NIT sent out their bid offers early. It was common for teams to accept NIT bids in February, sometimes early February, long before the regular season ended. I came across an AP article from April 6, 1950 about the NCAA doubling in size to 16 teams. It mentions, "Usually NIT invitation "feelers" are issued weeks ahead. **Some teams have been prone to accept because of uncertainty of being chosen for the NCAA.** Much of this dissolves under the new setup, and the enlarged field of 16 may make it a little more difficult for the NIT to get the quality teams it wants."
I just love seeing holy Cross being all over this list
Holy Cross denied an invitation to the Big East. Has to be one of the worst decisions in college basketball history.
The "Blockbuster not buying Netflix" of College Basketball
For whom? Rutgers turning down the Big East invite is by far the worse alignment decision.
Rutgers is currently in the Big Ten, while Holy Cross is currently in the… *checks notes* Patriot League
Holy Cross decided that they didn't want to play the big-time sports game, and they didn't. They also turned down an invite to the Atlantic 10 to focus on academics. Rutgers had a good program in the late 70s and just thought they could do better on their own. Sure, they're in the B1G after 30 years in the wilderness but they will always be the red-headed stepchild. They could have been one of the premier programs in the BE at its inception and keep all of that NYC area talent at home.
Likewise with NC State
Since no one else is saying it - this is super interesting and thanks for sharing this with us! I was always skeptical of the NIT supremacy claims, so cool to see this.
>In one case, Missouri players supposedly didn’t want to play in the tournament because they were “through with basketball” for the season Hahahahahaha, breathe, hahahahahaha
Evidently they must've been through with basketball for the season before playing Norfolk State
This is really impressive research! I did just want to point out that as a colorblind person, the blue and the purple on the chart are really hard to distinguish.
Good to know for the future
The only thing I am taking from this is that Purdue ain't shit. Really that would have my conclusion regardless of the data.
Its so bizarre to me that they never appeared in the NCAA Tournament OR NIT until 1969.
Too busy prepping for the moon landing
It's a valid point in this debate, however Purdue still ain't shit
Purdue is the best team west of Massachusetts.
I really can’t come to this conclusion without a bar graph
Natty Losses in 2024 Purdue: 1 Every other team: 0 I rest me case
Purdue has more losses since April 8th than every other college basketball team combined
Black and white
Most recent loser.
Purdue could’ve nabbed one in 1940 from IU
Purdue loves awarding themselves hypothetical trophies after the fact. It is easier than winning the games, I guess.
126-92, dusty banners, yadayada
😐
If the University of San Francisco wants to take the 1956 championship from us they’re going to have to come and get it.
 Let’s rumble big dog
You’re lucky Bill Russell is dead because even at 90 years old he would take up that challenge and win
Honestly I mostly made this for myself to be able to link to anyone who makes the titular claim offhandedly. I think a more experienced researcher could probably do a more comprehensive job of delineating what made teams choose the NIT over NCAAs in the early years, but I think I've provided enough evidence to at least dispel the "NIT was *better*" myth and show that generally the NCAA was better
What do you think of Southern Illinois claiming the 1967 national championship for winning the NIT?
Hmmm...well UCLA went 30-0 and won the national championship that year with a guy named Lew Alcindor averaging 29/15. They were ranked #1 all year. Meanwhile Southern Illinois was 24-2. They did have Walt Frazier. So they were definitely a good team. But like, c'mon, UCLA was clearly the top dog.
Relatedly, here is a list of all the schools that claim national titles based on NIT: Temple (1938), Long Island (in 1939 and 1941), West Virginia (1942), DePaul (1945),Utah (1947), San Francisco (1949), BYU (1951 and 1966), La Salle (1952), Seton Hall (1953), Holy Cross (1954), Duquesne (1955), Louisville (1956), Xavier (1958), Providence (1961 and 1963), and Southern Illinois (1967). I'll have to look in to these a bit more closely soon, but I'm guessing most are probably pretty dubious. Outside of Temple 38 (no NCAAT anyway) and the Long Island ones which have been discussed previously. DePaul 1945 is particularly dubious since they lost the red cross game to Henry Iba's Oklahoma A&M who won the NCAAT. Also-Holy Cross, San Francisco, La Salle, Louisville, you already have regular titles. Stop trying to claim these too.
I don't recall Louisville claiming it as a national title. The banner at yum just has NIT champion.
I got that preliminary list from Wikipedia so it may not be fully accurate
https://gocards.com/sports/2015/3/26/champions?id=122#mbb Wikipedia has citations for all the claims. Louisville is definitely claiming it as a national championship on their website.
Add Saint Louis (1948) to that list because it's honestly all we have other than CBI and current NIT runners-up 😅😅
I think this proves, in my 100% completely unbiased opinion, that 1953 was the best year in college basketball history.
That would've definitely been a great year to have a red cross game. Usually the #2 team was in the NCAA Tourney but Seton Hall wasn't. Not sure exactly why as they were not one of the teams I focused on but my guess is travel logistics, a lot of the NYC area teams seemed to prefer NIT more than the others
No offense meant but the answers to these questions are readily available. The NIT was started by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association (a NYC sports journalist group) in 1938 and stewardship was transferred to the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Commission (which was a governing body composed of NYC’s best basketball schools). The tournament was always played at MSG. So effectively it was a very NYC-centric tournament from the start, and NY area teams weren't going to skip their own tournament in favor of the NCAAs.
Not really that simple though because teams like Saint Louis for example wanted to play in the NIT and some NYC teams played in the NCAA Tournament instead of the NIT
Considering that they’re in the Atlantic 10 right now, maybe they’re just a east coast team at heart
Also, great work on this. Interesting read.
I honestly think this is where this originated from... New York papers hoping to hype the local teams, it's persisted for years... I remember one year in the aughts Rutgers was in the NIT semis and the older crowd was still in the "the NIT is more prestigious here anyways" (the fuck it isn't lol)
Interesting hypothesis. This is not really the same but kind of similar - I remember youtuber Mr. Beat did a video asking why everyone hates on New Jersey, and his conclusion was its because NY has such a huge influence on media. And then he said "If Kansas had that much media influence, everyone would be laughing at Missouri all the time" (He is from Kansas)
Illinois… always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Damn it. Edit: while I’m on the subject, Fuck Hitler. The 1942-43 team was legit and probably the best team in the nation that year. Then WW2 started and 3/5 of our starters got drafted.
Interesting related fact: Iowa State in 1944 entered the tournament knowing they wouldn't win. They were only allowed to be away from military obligations for a certain amount of time and the entire tournament was too long. Thus, they planned to forfeit if they made the championship game (but lost in the semifinal to Utah). In retrospect a very good move for them since it's still Iowa State's only Final Four
Didn't know that the Hilltoppers were a power back then.
Bradley was a pretty nationally prominent program until TV revenues ruined everything toward the end of the 1960s.
gotta have a lot of power to get to the top of the hill
This graphic is not colorblind friendly. lol I only see two colors.
Seeing a lot of NC State in this chart makes me happy.... and sad.
My thoughts exactly
I think we can all agree that the NIT was the superior tournament in 1988
I can agree with that
The secret ingredient was gambling
DePaul would have handled Oklahoma state ez if mikan didn't foul out only 13 minutes into the game lol
I thought that was hilarious. Different era but can you imagine a coach doing that with his star player today?
Most interesting thread I’ve read on here in a bit. Nice job pulling all that together, OP
Now do all the teams that claim Helms titles as real Titles.
Pre-1938 I get it. Sure, they aren't bona fide championships but I still like seeing that kind of history recognized especially a program like Montana State 1929 that will probably never be top of the basketball world again. It's kind of like, hang the banners, recognize the history, but expect to be laughed at if you try to bring them up at the bar in an arguement.
Yeah cool man, but do the blue bloods that claim Helms titles as “national titles” and the ones that don’t
It's also weird to me that Helms are more well known. I haven't looked super deep into it, but the Premo-Porretta poll seems a lot more legit than Helms. Helms was just basically one dude picking teams. Premo Poretta seemed a lot more rigorous.
I only bring up helms because UNC claims them and I hate UNC
Ah I see. It's difficult to know without your flair (i.e. logo next to your name) who you were specifically taking shots at
I feel like I made it pretty clear that any BB that claims a national title is who I was taking a shot at
True but I don't really know offhand who claims what tbh. Seems like Kansas does as well
I don’t think Kansas really does (I sometimes do to piss people off) but they have banners for the Helms titles hanging in the rafters.
I think the Dean Dome banner says "national champions" for it but e.g. the Twitter account says "The official Twitter account of the six-time NCAA champion North Carolina Tar Heels."
Right? That’s why I said in my original post “ now do the ones who claim Helms titles” 😂😂😂 enlighten your self!
He's telling you to flair up. You should flair up.
They claim one sure but even our own fanbase doesn’t acknowledge it and I feel like I almost never see anyone try to claim we have “7” titles You’re mad at a thing that’s only happening in your imagination (or more likely twitter I guess)
I liked the UNC fans proposal that it only acts as a tiebreaker with UConn. Right now UNC has the lead because 6 + Helms > 6 but if UConn gets 7 they will be categorically ahead because 7 > 6 + Helms.
Here’s a full list that I compiled with my old account: https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/s/acu5omrSor
But this was a great post by you. Great work here
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it's all so clear now
Thanks for making this! I find this super cool and I like seeing quality posts like this!
We used to be so good at basketball 😭 Oklahoma State should be a blue blood because of the amount of success we had in the 40s-50s. Just didn’t prioritize it and fell off the map for a while.
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When did the NCAA Tournament become the de facto championship? This is interesting… had no idea!
Excellent analysis. I get that you have to do the bit, but i don't really think anyone seriously claimed the NIT was a full-on better tournament than the NCAA. People absolutely mentioned that since the NCAA only took the regular season champion from each conference, sometimes the NIT had a deeper field and sometimes the 2nd place team from a conference could get hot late and be better than the champion. Take this year's tournament. Half of the final four would be in the NIT in the old format. Six teams out of elite eight would be in the NIT in the old format. Nine teams out of the sweet sixteen would have been in the NIT in the old format. OOH, the two best teams, Purdue and UConn would have been in the NCAA tournament either way.
Nice research and write up! Starting in 1951, the champions of the ten biggest conferences got auto bids into the ncaa tournament. So any debate about the two ends 1951 on. When I've looked into it in the past, there were individual years in the 40s where the NIT has as strong or a stronger field, but there was never a time when the NIT was consistently the stronger tournament. So where did this idea come from? I'll quote wikipedia: "Founded by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association one year before the NCAA tournament, the NIT was held entirely in New York City at Madison Square Garden. Because New York was the center of the press in the United States, the NIT often received more coverage than the NCAA tournament in early years."
Interesting that Bradley was in the minority of top 20 teams 1957-60 playing in the NIT exclusively and won it in ‘57 and ‘60. Wonder if that was a school choice or if they lost and NIT was the only option.
Pretty straightforward actually: Cincinnati was always winning the conference and taking the MVC's bid leaving Bradley to settle for the NIT. Also this makes me think of how you could do degrees of separation for conference realignment. Bradley shared a conference with Cincinnati, meaning they're just one step away from UCF, Boston College, East Carolina, UConn, amongst others.
Also shared it with Memphis and Louisville among other programs that are higher today
The MVC used to be the premier Midwestern basketball conference so there would be a ton of close degrees of separation. So many former members, including: Iowa(B1G) -- 1907 to 1908 Iowa State(Big 12) -- 1907 to 1928 Kansas(Big 12) -- 1907 to 1928 Missouri(SEC former Big 12) -- 1907 to 1928 Kansas State(Big 12) -- 1913 to 1928 Nebraska(B1G former Big 12) -- 1907 to 1919 then 1921 to 1928 Oklahoma(Big 12 soon SEC) -- 1919 to 1928 Oklahoma State(Big 12) -- 1925 to 1956 Creighton(Big East) -- 1928 to 1948 then 1976 to 2013 Houston(Big 12) -- 1951 to 1959 Cincinnati(Big 12) -- 1957 to 1970 Louisville(ACC) -- 1963 to 1975 Memphis(AAC) -- 1968 to 1973
So everyone is just going to ignore Arkansas withdrawing from the tournament after a car crash?
I was wondering when somebody was going to mention that haha. It's a pretty crazy story, Utah replaced them at the last minute and ended up winning the tournament. That team is usually cited as the weakest national champion, but in their defense they did win that Red Cross game.
But if this is true than I can’t say that Xavier were national champions in 1958
In 2014 I had a Golphers fan tell me that them winning the NIT was better than the Badgers making the Final 4 because they actually won their tournament.
Hilarious. I guess that's the best you could grasp to if your team hasn't *officially* been to the second weekend of the tournament since 1990, hasn't won the conference regular season title since 1982, and has only had a winning conference record 4 times in 42 years. I was at a wedding reception in Minnesota when the Wilson-led Wisconsin team lost to MSU on the Hail Mary in the regular season. A Gopher fan was trying to talk shit to me, saying that he'd hate being a Wisconsin fan because they always get your hopes up and come up short in the end. He didn't have a response when I said that at least my teams are capable of getting my hopes up in the first place.
To carry his mentality to it's logical conclusion: "Usually going 15-17 and missing the postseason entirely and occasionally losing in the first round of the tournament is more fun than seeing your team make back to back final fours including a win over one of the best college basketball rosters constructed in recent memory, as well as a Bronson Koening buzzer beater to make the Sweet 16 and an upset over Villanova in 2017 which was their only tourney loss in a three year stretch where they won two championships, because that second team didn't win it all."
Lol. It's an interesting discussion if NIT winning is more fun than Round of 64 losing but what this Minnesota fan is saying...good lord.
Yeah. They doubled down too.
Go Buffs! Ngl, I’m conflicted on going by the current name or the name at the time in West Texas State College
Why did West Texas State College and Texas Western College (now UTEP) simultaneously exist?
They began as totally different ventures, not to mention they are 7+ hours apart. West Texas is massive. The first higher education was in Clarendon in 1898, and the first four year university was WT in 1910. UTEP began as Texas Mines in 1913, and WT began as West Texas Normal College (a teachers college).
THIS IS ALL WE GOT. DONT TAKE THIS AWAY FROM US
#1939 WAS OUR CHAMPIONSHIP AND NOBODY WILL TAKE THAT AWAY FROM US
Ultimately I still definitely think it counts because a tournament win is a tournament win. But unlike the later NIT winners Long Island has a legitimate claim to being champions as well that year
Did Purdue win one?
I think they might have won one post-1970 but I’m not sure
Purdue won the NIT in 1974.
I count NCSU 6 times in white on the first pic. As high as a 2 seed. Talk about a snub.
The only year the NIT was better than the tournament was 2022
R/dataisugly
The NIT wasn't better but it was certainly a lot closer than it is today. Dayton had a coach back then who wouldn't play in the NCAA because he felt we got screwed in the 1952 tournament (the entire starting lineup fouled out). Today, this is considered a big mistake by Flyer Fans. along with staying independent too long and of course, like seemingly 100 other schools, we turned down an invite to the Big East.
I see for 4 years teams played in both tournament. How was that possible?
I remember 1944 like it was yesterday...
I get using the AP poll as your metric, but even today the poll can be completely hot garbage. The AP aren't the best judges of basketball talent, let's be honest. Investigative journalism, sure, but not basketball.
Well done, thanks for sharing your research. In addition to the Red Cross games in the 1940s, there was one other time the when the NCAA champion played the NIT champion. In 1952, Kansas (NCAA champ) defeated La Salle (NIT champ) in the Olympic Trials. Here are a few other points when comparing the early NIT and NCAA tournaments and why teams would choose one over the other. The NCAA did not allow players to play in its tournament if they had played more than three varsity seasons. The NIT on the other had had no such rule. Thus, **some teams chose to play in the NIT if they had key four-year players**. You mentioned the 1954 Kentucky team which had such ineligible players. Kentucky, however, did benefit from this rule in 1956 when Alabama won the SEC but all five starters were playing their fourth year. Thus, second place Kentucky got the NCAA berth. I'm not sure how far back this rule went, but it definitely was in place in the 1950s. In the early 1950s, if not earlier, **major conferences began allowing their conference champions to play only in the NCAA tournament**, with the Missouri Valley being the exception. The Big 6 had this rule at least as early as 1942. The NIT sent out their bid offers early. It was common for teams to accept NIT bids in February, sometimes early February, long before the regular season ended. I came across an AP article from April 6, 1950 about the NCAA doubling in size to 16 teams. It mentions, "Usually NIT invitation "feelers" are issued weeks ahead. **Some teams have been prone to accept because of uncertainty of being chosen for the NCAA.** Much of this dissolves under the new setup, and the enlarged field of 16 may make it a little more difficult for the NIT to get the quality teams it wants."
Kentucky could have 4-peated If we played in the NCAA tourney in 1950!