“NIT vs. NCAA Showdowns Set the Stage for Madness” 

March 25, 2021

The West Won and the PAC 12 is Flexing in 2021

Los Angeles - The NCAA doesn’t always get things right, in fact, most of the time they are wrong.  Okay, okay, they are almost always wrong.  But one thing they do well, quite well in fact, is March Madness.  There is nothing like the NCAA Mens Basketball tournament, but it wasn’t always that way.  In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, the National Invitation Tournament, or NIT, was held in higher regard.

The NCAA championship tournament, which began in 1939, chose only one team from each region, while the NIT, which preceded the NCAA’s by a year, was able to choose teams from anywhere, and often cashed in on natural rivals and teams that were playing their best at the end of the season.  The NIT was also played in the Mecca of basketball at the time, Madison Square Garden.  The glamour and the power of the media in NYC made the NIT a more attractive option for teams.  

Then, in a need to raise money for WW II war efforts, the champions of both the NCAA and NIT tournaments played each other in 1943, 1944 and 1945.  The American Red Cross spearheaded the coordination of the games between each year's tournament champion.  These became considered as the real games for the national championship.  

It was the NCAA representative teams that prevailed in all three games.  Wyoming, Utah and Oklahoma A&M, all teams from the West, switched the balance of power to the NCAA.  Please note, I looked at a map and verified that Wyoming and Utah are indeed west of the Rockies, and, when you think of Curly McLain from the musical “Oklahoma”, I mean, who is more of a westerner than that guy?

In 1951, the NIT took another hit when authorities uncovered a point-shaving scandal that went back years and which involved mostly, but not exclusively, New York area schools.  I suppose even Captain Louis Renault was shocked to find that gambling was going on at Madison Square Garden.

Moving into the mid 50’s, the West would rule again. Bill Russel and the University of San Francisco won titles in ’55 and ’56, and with dynamic players like Elgin Baylor carrying Seattle University to the championship game in 1958 and Jerry West doing the same for West Virginia in 1959, the NCAA’s were a basketball nirvana.  Both Baylor and West were named Most Outstanding Players of the tournament despite being on the 2nd place team.  West and the Mountaineers came up a point short to the University of California for the ’59 banner.

From 1964 to 1975, Coach John Wooden would rule over the tournament leading the UCLA Bruins to 10 NCAA championships in 12 years, a period of dominance that will never be repeated.  Then a drought hit the West.  

No school west of the Rockies would win the tournament for 15 years.  The formation of the Big East Conference in 1980 and subsequent post season tournament coinciding with the launch of ESPN on cable TV and their focus on teams in the East, top talent started a reverse migration from the West to East.  

However, in the late 80’s and into the 90’s, programming in the extended Los Angeles area began to build up.  Summer basketball, or “AAU Basketball”, corralled the talent to an extent. Most notable was the success of entrepreneurs Dana and David Pump and the Double Pump elite camps and teams.  

Some of the Double Pump players found themselves wandering through the desert, to programs like UNLV and Arizona.  It would take the NCAA’s favorite target for wrongdoings, the affable and enigmatic hall of fame coach Jerry Tarkanian and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to restore order.  “Tark”, like Wooden in ’64, used a suffocating full court press to launch the Running Rebels to the title in 1990.  

The 1990 tournament also brought us one of the most inspirational stories in the history of the tournament as the little school that could, Loyola Marymount of Westchester, California, set NCAA scoring records with their up tempo style, then tragically lost their top player Hank Gathers, who died on the court at the West Coast Conference tournament.  The Lions rallied behind his spirit to make a run to the elite eight, blowing out the defending champion Michigan Wolverines along the way.  

It was a 12 year run in the 60’s and 70’s that nabbed UCLA 10 banners, but it took an excruciating 20 years for spoiled Bruins fans to get another.  In 1995, led by the frosh phenom Toby Bailey, UCLA captured number 11.  Bailey scored 26 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the championship game victory.  Just two years later, it was back to desert as the Arizona Wildcats, led by their classy coach, Lute Olson, won the school’s first championship and the Pac 8/ Pac 10/Pac 12’s 16th NCAA Tournament Championship.   

These last two decades, some kind of curse has fallen upon the West, especially the Pac 10 and/or 12.  Wether that was mismanagement in the way of TV and endorsement deals, an East Coast bias, or an NCAA tournament committee lack of respect, it has been 23 years since a team from out West has won it all.

But today, the West is flexing its mountainous muscles, especially the AAU Club team known as the Compton Magic.  Led by another entrepreneurial operator, Etop Udo-Ema, their program and in particular their 2018 squad can make a strong argument as greatest AAU club team ever.  Four players from the “Magic Boyz” are playing key roles for Pac 12 teams in this years NCAA Tournament.  

The Pac 12 has won 9 of 10 games, and, heading into the March Madness "Sweet 16” this weekend, four Pac 12 teams will join the #1 seeded and undefeated Gonzaga Bulldogs.  That is some serious Western flavor.  

As much as we can take a shots at the NCAA committee getting it wrong with the selection and seeds this and every other year, who can be mad at the NCAA when March rolls around with the greatest tournament in all of sports?

 Watch the SSDL “March Madness Special” now featured on YouTube.com/SSDL, featuring interviews with 1995 UCLA champion Toby Bailey as well as Craig Impelman, John Wooden’s grandson-in-law, who presents a profile of Arizona’s ’97 championship coach Lute Olson.

You can find an interview with the founder and chief executive of the Compton Magic, Etop Udo-Ema, under the “Preps to Olympians” playlist.  

• Denny Lennon is the Host of YouTube Live shows and the Video Podcast, “Sports Stories with Denny Lennon”

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