Tournaments, Players, and Coaches

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Coaching a 7 consecutive national championship winning team is hard to do, but it has been done. Basketball teams and tournaments have changed greatly over time, however there are college basketball coaches and players from years ago who are still considered impressive today. Student resources in context is a database to supply students with information. This article was published in 2013, making this a reliable source.

The first national tournament was in 1938 at Madison Square Garden . It was called the National Invitational Tournament (NIT). A lot of teams participated in it, making it a big success. A year later, the NCAA had another tournament. Forrest “Phog” Allen (a player for Naismith at Kansas) organized the tournament. 8 teams participated in the tournament and was played at the University of Illinois. The University of Oregon ended up winning the tournament. In my opinion, I think it’s crazy how far the tournament has come. Now, there are close to 70 teams entered in the NCAA tournament. It has come really far and has become a bigger deal considering the fact that around 62 more teams have been able to play.

Oscar Robertson played for the University of Cincinnati from 1957-1960. He was one of the greatest men’s college basketball players in history. For three consecutive seasons he was named player of the year. He had an average of 38.8 points per game, which up until that point, was the highest point average in college basketball history. He must have been a really good player because to me, 38.8 points is a lot in one game. Considering how far college basketball has come today and how people weren’t as skilled back then as they are now, I think it’s impressive that he scored that much, when in college basketball games today players still don’t score that many points. John Wooden is a former UCLA head coach and is considered the greatest coach ever in college basketball. During his 27 years of coaching UCLA, he won a record of 10 national championships, 7 of them being consecutive. The fact that his team won 7 national championships in a row is crazy. It’s hard for one team to win one championship, let alone 7 in a row.

Future Research Question: How has women's basketball changed over time?