College Baketball - When it became so popular
The first college basketball game that there is record of was played many years ago in Beaver Falls Pennsylvania on April 8, 1893 by a team form Geneva College and New Brighton YMCA. Geneva College was the victor of this match. On February 9th 1895 the first intercollegiate college basketball game was played between the Minnesota State School of Agriculture and Hamline. It wasn’t until the following year that the now 5 player format occurred between Iowa City and The University if Chicago. Before the 5 player, seven to nine players would take to the court for a game of College Basketball.
In 1906 the NCAA was founded because there were enough colleges able to make up teams. The first NCAA men’s College Basketball Championship tournament took place in Evanston, Illinois in 1939. Oregon State beat Ohio State 46-33 in the final game to win the championship in front of 5,500 fans.
Now a days you can turn on the television and see a college basketball game during the season about as much as you see football during football season. It wasn’t until the year 1940 when the first college basketball game was televised. The game took place at Madison Square Garden with Pittsburgh defeating Fordham 57 to 37 and NYU beat Georgetown 50 to 27. The television has made it possible for college basketball to become one of the most popular events to watch during March Madness.
There are 330 colleges and universities that participate in men’s college basketball. There are 47 states the have a least one Division 1 men’s program. The teams that participate play in 31 different conferences that are either major or mid-major conferences. The winner of all 31 conferences has an automatic bid to play in the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Tournament. The teams that make up the major conferences tend to dominate the game even to this day. They also have the benefit to play tougher schedules.
While less commercialized, Women’s Division I, and Division II and III, both Women’s and Men’s, are highly successful college basketball organizations. Women’s Division I is often televised, but to smaller audiences than Men’s Division I. Generally, small colleges join Division II, while colleges of all sizes that choose not to offer athletic scholarships join Division III. D-II and D-III games, understandably, are almost never televised. Many teams at these levels have rabid fan bases, though, and to those fans these games can be equally or more entertaining than big-name college basketball.
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