For 70 years masses of fans of the college basketball and crazed alumni from colleges across the country have made the March Madness basketball tournament the highlight of the sports year. Right from the start of the basketball season when basketball midnight madness 2008 begins until the Finals are finished, college basketball keeps fans short of breath and glued to the scoreboards.
March madness history unfolds begins at the start of the 20th century in the state of Illinois when the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) sponsored a season-ending popular tournament to determine the state’s best high school teams way back in 1908. Since the college game was not established yet, the high school tournament grew in popularity and the number of teams grew to a staggering 900 after just a few years. The winning 16 from this draw, the “Sweet Sixteen” always brought sellout crowds. The format for the tournament remained intact, hosted by the University of Illinois, until the mid 1930s. “March Madness” was coined by Henry Porter, the assistant secretary of the IHSA, in a newsletter he penned about the high school tournament in 1939. Since this reference was documented by Porter, the IHSA continues to split the windfall from the trademark of this iconic term with the NCAA.
The March Madness basketball tournament began as a college tournament in 1939 when it matched the top eight teams from NCAA Division I regular season competition. In its first season the tournament was conceived and run by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Oregon won the first title ever in the final competition in Illinois. The NCAA took over the tournament the following season, which helped it to blossom into the sports giant it is today.
Through the history of March Madness additional teams were added to the draw and selection methods became increasingly more complex. Various format changes took place until it settled into the 64-game single elimination tourney that has become so popular. The CBS Network has been exclusively broadcasting the tournament since its television debut back in 1952, the tournament added a play-in game in 2001. This game, which brings the total number of teams to 65, is played the week before the tournament of 64 begins and features the two lowest seeds facing off to try to get into the big dance. The final rounds throughout march madness history have gained their own nicknames: the “Sweet Sixteen,” the “Elite Eight” and the “Final Four.”
The march madness basketball tournament championship history is chock full of buzzer-beating, last second, miracle shots that have launched Cinderella (underdog, low-seeded teams) teams above the higher-seeded teams–this is one of the draws of the tournament and its single-elimination format. Despite the wide open format in which anyone can win, there are a handful of powerhouse college programs that have dominated as winners throughout the history of March Madness. Specifically, five schools have dominated in the number of Final Four appearances in the tournament: North Carolina, UCLA, Duke, Kansas and Kentucky have each appeared at least 13 times. UCLA is the most winning program in March Madness history, winning 11 times! The next closest college program, the University of North Carolina, has won 5 times.
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