Ranking all 77 tournament champions

[MUBoxer]

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketb ... -champions

Georgetown comes in at #26

Marquette comes in at #58

Villanova comes in at #66

Thoughts?

[whiteandblue77]

IMHO Patrick Ewing's Hoyas should have been higher... prolly top 15, that team was awesome. These things are all subjective bs tho, when you're comparing 50s teams to 80s teams, apples to oranges and just a waste of a story.

[gtmoBlue]

obviously a slow day at the wwl.

[whiteandblue77]

Gtmo can you please post your own acronym appendix? lol, I have no idea what 99% of them mean... wwl?

[Omaha1]

Gtmo can you please post your own acronym appendix? lol, I have no idea what 99% of them mean... wwl?

I'm guessing world wide leader.. aka ESPN

[Bill Marsh]

As a student of the history of the game, I literally hate this article and others like it. It treats college basketball like it begins and ends with the NCAA tournament. It doesn't. Here are some years when the NIT should be viewed as at least the equal of the NCAA champ.

1938 - Temple (23-2) NIT champ, recognized by The Helms Foundation as national champions

That was the first national championship tournament. The fact that some shoots chose not to compete is on them. No mention of the Temple Owls in the article.

1939 - LIU beat Loyola (Chi) in a matchup of undefeateds and was also recognized by the Helms Foundation as national champs.

1944 - Utah competed in both tournaments, losing in the first round of the NIT to Kentucky. St. John's beat Kentucky and went on to with the tournament championship.

1949 - Kentucky competed in both tournaments, losing to Loyola (Chi). San Francisco went on to beat Loyola in the championship game.

In 1951, the NCAA expanded its tournament from 8 teams to 16. Although both tournaments were still attracting top 10 teams, based on sheer numbers, the NCAA would seem to have won the argument as the more representative tournament. After the 1952 season in which St. John's competed in both tournaments, losing to Kansas in the NCAA championship game, the NCAA passed a rule banning teams from their tournament if they had competed in another tournament, further complicating the matter. But let's look at the next couple of seasons:

1953 - Indiana (23-3), NCAA champs
1953 - Seton Hall (31-2), NIT champs

After the tournaments, AP voted Indiana #1 and Seton Hall #2. Based on what? They didn't play head to head and they had no common opponents. The 2 teams had both been ranked #1 at one point or another during the regular season. Based on the convoluted thinking of the time, if a team lost, it had to be dropped in the polls. Seton Hall had the last loss. Makes sense, right? There is little doubt that there was heavy anti-East Coast bias in this vote.

1954 - LaSalle (26-4), NCAA champs
1954 - Holy Cross (26-2), NIT champs

This year there was a common opponent. Niagara, who finished third in the NIT, beat LaSall twice during the regular season by a combined total of 27 points. That should have made Holy Cross a no-brainer for the voters, right? Instead the final AP poll after the tournaments was:

1. Kentucky (banned from the tournaments for using ineligible players)
2. LaSalle
3. Holy Cross

Holy Cross had the best argument for the national title, but the voters unabashedly gave their nod to cheaters. Nonetheless the supremacy of the NCAA tournament clearly was well established by this time. At least in the minds of the voters. It was not due to inferior competition in the NIT which continued to attract top 10 teams up through the mid '60's. However, there is little doubt that the very best teams were going to the NCAA after 1954 and there is little reason to doubt the legitimacy of the national championship after that point. The Final Four is another matter. As recently as 1965 when St. John's beat #8 Villanova for the NIT title, they clearly are more deserving of mention than Wichita State, who went to the Final Four as winner of the Midwest regional. WSU didn't face a single top 20 team in that regional and then lost both their Final Four game and the consolation round.

In the pre-TV era, the NIT was the bigger tournament through the 1940's if for no other reason than that it drew bigger crowds and received more media coverage. Reporters voting in the polls rarely saw last of the teams they were voting on. Even the Helms Foundation, the only neutral arbiter in this mess, was based in California and was heavily biased toward West Coast teams and the NCAA tournament. The argument could be made in any given year up to 1954 for the champion of either tournament as the true national champion.

Those who paid the price for all of this biased coverage were typically either Eastern or Catholic or both. As wrong as it was at the time, I hate to see it continued 60 and more years later by the ignorance of those who don't know their history but who seem heavily invested in perpetuating the myth that the football schools have always dominated in basketball as well.

[whiteandblue77]

Thanks Bill, very true and it gives me a chance to bring up the fact that Creighton was in the NIT Final Four in 1942, my Dad would always bring that up (and mention that the NIT was the biggest tournament then). Unfortunately I was a kid obsessed with ESPN and the NCAA tournament growing up in the 70s and 80s so his words always fell on deaf ears... kinda sad. I'm sure there are a lot of basketball ghosts sighing when they see these kind of articles that essentially re-write history in their own favor.

[ChelseaFriar]

Bill,

Approximately when did the NCAA clearly surpass the NIT, in your opinion?

Below is a list of the teams in the NIT championship game over the years. A lot of current BE teams in the early years.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Invitation_Tournament

[whiteandblue77]

Our Final Four (third place game winner) in '42 isn't recognized these days but it very well should be....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942_Nati ... Tournament

The winner that year, West Virginia, recognizes the fact on their page... although somewhat vaguely... actually leaving out the fact that they WON the final.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virg ... basketball

West Virginia men's basketball has competed in three basketball championship final matches: the 1959 NCAA final, the 1942 NIT final (at that time, the NIT was considered more prestigious than the NCAA), and the 2007 NIT Championship.

Our Wikipedia page doesn't even mention the Final Four in 42... big mistake imho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creighton ... basketball

Eddie Hickey era (1936–1947)
Eddie Hickey took over the program for the 1935–36 season. Hickey was reared in small-town Nebraska and graduated from Creighton University School of Law in 1926. Sawed-off at 5'5", Edward 'The Little Giant' Hickey was a dynamic chunky man who had quarterbacked Creighton university football in the Roaring 20's. He was enamored more by the game he could teach if not, obviously lacking size, play well. He was the head coach of both the football and basketball teams at Creighton Preparatory for eight years before moving to Creighton University.
Hickey was a master of the fast-break and winning. He immediately led the Bluejays to the Missouri Valley title in his first season. Their fast break - 'controlled fast break' Eddie would emphasize sarcastically - featured an explosive movement that required the ball not to hit the floor. 'The Little Giant' would take Creighton to new heights by the early 1940s, with 1943 Consensus First Team All American Ed Beisser in the middle and his high powered offense, Hickey would lead the Jays to their first NCAA Tournament and two National Invitation Tournaments. With his flair for 'run-sheep-run' basketball, Hickey and his teams were a good show in the Big Apple.
World War II would briefly suspend Creighton's basketball program and Hickey would return to coach for one year after the war before moving on to St. Louis. His 126-71 record and four conference titles in nine seasons at Creighton was followed by success in St. Louis and later Marquette. Edgar Hickey would go down as a hall of fame coach with a 36-year college career of 570-268.[5]

[whiteandblue77]

Bill,

Approximately when did the NCAA clearly surpass the NIT, in your opinion?

Below is a list of the teams in the NIT championship game over the years. A lot of current BE teams in the early years.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Invitation_Tournament

Prolly a great question and I'm guessing you'll get a lot of subjective answers... GREAT offseason topic tho Hopefully the offseason for the BE won't start tonight. GO NOVA!!!