HONR101: History and Culture of Basketball

October 12, 2011

Source: Encyclopedia of College Basketball

On February 12, 1892 – the central and Armory Hill branches of the Springfield YMCA held a boys game in front of a crowd of 100 spectators.

Final score: a 2-2 tie The Springfield Daily Republican

reported “The game was a very pretty one to watch.”

On March 12, 1892, the school’s faculty played the students in a game with a crowd of 200 spectators.

Final score: Students win 5-1 The faculty’s only point was scored by Amos Alonzo

Stagg, who would later become a pioneer in coaching football.

The Republican stated, “His (Stagg) football training hampered him and he was perpetually making fouls by shoving his opponents.”

By the winter of 1893-94, the YMCA in Hartford, Connecticut had organized a 5-team league.

No admission was charged, except for 10 cents for reserved seats.

More than 10,000 spectators had come to see games over the course of the winter. The YMCA made a profit of $250.

Some of the first reported college basketball teams were established between 1892-94

1892: Geneva College (PA)

1893: Stanford, Yale, University of Toronto, Vanderbilt

1894: University of Chicago, Cornell

Shortly after: Temple, Ohio State, Haverford College

The college teams would play in leagues against local athletic clubs

The first game between two colleges is generally considered to have occurred in February, 1985.

The Minnesota School of Agriculture and Mining beat Hamline College 9-3.

Each team played with 9 players on a side.

A month later, Haverford College beat Temple 6-4.

In 1896, the University of Chicago (coached by Amos Alonzo Stagg) defeated a YMCA team composed of University of Iowa students by a score of 15-12.

Each team played with five men per side. Penn athletic director Ralph Morgan

claimed the 1897 game between Yale and Penn was the first real intercollegiate game.

Yale won the game 32-10.

Yale was instrumental in the development of early basketball. The 5-man game became popular. Also, dribbling of the ball became both an offensive and defensive weapon.

Yale continued to play in 1898 through 1890, but didn’t play another college team until 1899.

It beat Cornell in a game that year 49-7. In 1900, Yale took a trip west to play

schools like Ohio State and Wisconsin.

The appeal of the game was growing. Many colleges were starting teams.

Colleges without gymnasiums simply played their games outdoors.

An exhibition tournament was played outdoors at the 1904 Olympic games held in St. Louis. Hiram College won the tournament.

The University of Nebraska had early success, winning 19 consecutive games to close out the century.

By 1905, there was an estimated 88 colleges playing basketball, most of them in Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio.

By 1914, the number of colleges with teams grew to 366. This included substantial growth in the Midwest, as well as Virginia.

According to Spalding’s Guide, basketball’s yearbook, baseball was the only sport that had more male athletes involved.

With the large growth of the game, there simply wasn’t enough qualified officials, according to Spalding.

Drastic rule changes were made yearly and officials had a difficult time keeping up with the changes.

In 1909, the President of Harvard barred basketball at the university, claiming that “basket ball has become even more brutal than football.”

In 1910, the rules committee lowered the player foul limit from 5 (established in 1908) to 4. This somewhat reduced the physical play.

A second referee was added in some areas of the country.

The style of play also was changing in some regions, which led to less of the violence. Fast breaking offenses, with long, swift passes were used. Players were developing outside shots. Early games featured bigger players scoring most of the points from close range.

The establishment of leagues or conferences was an important development in college basketball.

Leagues brought organization to the scheduling process, as well as training classes for officials.

The New England Intercollegiate Basketball League began in May, 1901. It consisted of Yale, Harvard, Trinity, Holy Cross, Amherst, and Williams.

Yale and Harvard dropped out a year later to join what eventually became the Ivy League. The New England League folded after one year.

The Western Conference, which later became the Big Ten, was established in 1905-06.

Members included Chicago, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Purdue.

The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association consisted of Georgia Tech, Auburn, Howard College, Tulane, Vanderbilt, and the University of Georgia.

In 1908-09, Western Conference added Indiana, Iowa, and Northwestern.

The Missouri Valley Conference was formed with 6 schools.

The Northwest College Conference consisted of Oregon Agricultural (Oregon State), Whitman College, Washington State, and the University of Idaho. In 1909-10, the universities of Washington and Oregon were added.

The University of Chicago was the top program of that decade. It compiled a record of 78-12 from 1900 through 1909. It went 12-0 in the Western League in 1908-09.

Columbia was the dominant team in the Eastern League, but the two schools were unable to schedule any type of championship game or series.

Great teams emerged in the next decade. Schools such as Dayton, Oregon State, Michigan State, Montana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota were having much success.

The Naval Academy went 109-9 from 1910-19.

More rule changes: Glass backboards were allowed. Out-of-bounds rules eliminated the mad

scrambles. Traveling was enforced so the ball handler could

only take one step. The double dribble was eliminated.

Dr. Naismith was pleased to see much of the roughness being curtailed.

In 1920, a crowd of 10,000 spectators watched a tournament game between City College of New York and New York University.

As crowds were growing, schools were building large arenas. For example, the University of Iowa built a 16,000-seat facility.

Montana State went 213-44 between 1920-29.

Other teams that were excelling in the 20’s included Army, Navy, North Carolina, Cal, Creighton, Oklahoma, Penn State and CCNY.

The professional New York’s Original Celtics team was so adept at making quick, short passes, many believed that dribbling was unnecessary.

The Celtics whipped the Cleveland Rosenblums for the professional championship in 1927.

The Joint Rules Committee voted 9-8 to eliminate the dribble.

The committee later reconvened and it finally agreed that the college players were not pros and that they needed the dribble to maneuver. The committee voted to keep the dribble in college basketball.

The AAU had run national basketball tournaments off and on since 1897.

In 1920, it attracted big interest in Atlanta. The tournament move to Kansas City from

1921 through 1935, but moved to Denver in 1936.

Kansas City civic leaders enlisted Dr. Naismith to help found a “national” tournament in 1937.

An 8-team playoff consisting of the Midwest conference champions was held.

This tournament organization later evolved the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.

The NAIA was credited with staging the first national collegiate tournament.

Warrensburg (became Central Missouri) defeated Washburn College 45-30 to be crowned the first national champion in March, 1937.

The tournament trophy was named for Naismith’s wife, Maude.

Large crowds were becoming the norm in New York. Doubleheaders were being played at Madison Square Gardens and other large arenas.

The Metropolitan Basketball Writer’s Association organized the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) to close the 1937-38 season.

The plan was to attract the big-name schools and players. At the time, they didn’t realize this was the direction of college basketball’s billion-dollar future.

The first NCAA Tournament was held in 1939. It was actually ran by the National Association of

Basketball Coaches (NABC). The 8-team (one team from each district)

tournament only brought in 15,025 for attendance and lost $2,531.

The NABC was out of money and asked the NCAA to assume responsibility for the tournament.

Harold Olsen, Ohio State’s coach, was given much of the credit for unveiling the NCAA tournament.

His Ohio State team lost 46-33 to Oregon in the inaugural tournament championship

1937-38: Center jump after every basket is rescinded, Temple (23-2) is NIT champ.

1938-39: Circumference of ball is 30 inches, Oregon (29-5) is NCAA champ, Long Island (23-0) is NIT champ.

1939-40: NCAA-Indiana (20-3), NIT-Colorado (17-4)

1940-41: NCAA-Wisconsin, NIT-Long Island 1941-42: NCAA-Stanford, NIT-West Virginia,

Stanford received a check from the NCAA of $93.75 to cover its expenses

1942-43: If a game goes into overtime, players are allowed a 5th foul, NCAA-Wyoming, NIT-St. John’s

1943-44: NCAA-Utah, NIT-St. John’s 1944-45: Defensive goaltending is banned, 5

fouls disqualifies a player, no extra foul is allowed for overtime, unlimited substitution is introduced, NCAA-Oklahoma A&M, NIT-DePaul

1945-46: NCAA-Oklahoma A&M, NIT-Kentucky 1946-47: Clock stopped on every dead ball

the last 3 minutes of the second half and overtime, NCAA-Kentucky, NIT-St. Louis

1948-49: Coaches allowed to converse while mingling with players during a timeout, NIT field expands from 8 to 12 teams, NCAA champ-Kentucky, NIT champ-San Francisco