in
Lawrence, Kansas in 2021. The
Kansas Jayhawks are among the most storied and historic programs at the collegiate level, due to their ties to
James Naismith, the inventor of basketball The history of
basketball can be traced back to a
YMCA International Training School, known today as
Springfield College, located in
Springfield, Massachusetts. The sport was created by physical education teacher
James Naismith, who in the winter of 1891 was given the task of creating a game that would keep track athletes in shape and that would prevent them from getting hurt. The date of the first formal basketball game played at the Springfield YMCA Training School under Naismith's rules is generally given as December 21, 1891. Along with this during the history and rise of the college game of basketball many issues arose. These issues were known as "civil wars" in college basketball, according to Kurt Edward Kemper. At first all colleges were considered as equal competitors because there were no divisions or conferences which caused smaller schools to protest against this. Eventually they created the NIT program, but this was only for the larger colleges and universities, so they then in 1937 had to create the NAIB for smaller colleges. Basketball began to be played at some college campuses by 1893.
Collegiate firsts The first known college to field a basketball team against an outside opponent was
Vanderbilt University, which played against the local YMCA in
Nashville, Tennessee, on February 7, 1893, where Vanderbilt won 9–6. Drexel won the game, which was played under rules allowing nine players per side, among many other variations from modern basketball, 26–1. The first intercollegiate match using the modern rule of five players per side is often credited as a game between the
University of Chicago and the
University of Iowa, in
Iowa City, Iowa, on January 18, 1896. The Chicago team
won the game 15-12, under the coaching of
Amos Alonzo Stagg, who had learned the game from James Naismith at Springfield YMCA. The Olympic title was won by
Hiram College. In March 1922, the
1922 National Intercollegiate Basketball Tournament was held in Indianapolis – the first stand-alone post-season tournament exclusively for college teams. The champions of six major conferences participated:
Pacific Coast Conference,
Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Western Pennsylvania League,
Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference,
Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association and
Indiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association. The
Western Conference and
Eastern Intercollegiate League declined invitations to participate.
Wabash College won the 1922 tournament. The first organization to tout a regularly occurring national collegiate championship was the
NAIA in 1937, although it was quickly surpassed in prestige by the
National Invitation Tournament, or NIT, which brought six teams to New York's
Madison Square Garden in the spring of 1938. Not long afterward, assisted by the
1951 scandals based in New York City (which had the knock-on effect of New York City media giving less attention to collegiate basketball), the NCAA tournament had become more prestigious than before, with conference champions and the majority of top-ranked teams competing there. The NCAA tournament eventually overtook the NIT by 1960. Through the 1960s and 1970s, with UCLA leading the way as winner of ten NCAA Tournament championships, a shift in power to teams from the west amplified the shift of attention away from the New York City-based NIT. As the NCAA tournament expanded its field of teams from 25 to 32 in 1975, to 48 in 1980, to 64 in 1985, and to 68 teams in 2011, interest in the NCAA tournament increased again and again, as it comprised more and more teams, soon including all of the strongest ones. (Expansion also improved the distribution of playing locations, which number roughly one-third the number of teams in the field.) In 2011, the NCAA field expanded to 68 teams and the last 8 teams playing for four spots making the field into 64, which is called the first round and so on. The former first round is called the second round, the second round is called the third round, and the Sweet Sixteen is the same, but it is technically the fourth round in the current format, etc. In 2016, the field did not expand, but the round numbers changed again. The initial games containing the last 8 teams are now referred to as the
First Four. Consequently, the first round does not start until the First Four games are out of the way and the field is narrowed to 64 teams. So after the first four games the first round starts instead of that being the second round. The Second is now when there are 32 teams left, the sweet sixteen is the third round, and so on. In 2020, for the first time in the NCAA's history, the tournament had to be canceled due to fears of the
COVID-19 pandemic. This move was done largely out of fear of the virus spreading to players and watchers, with prior attempts to limit the spread without canceling by first choosing to limit attendees, and then canceling the tournament in its entirety. The cancellation of the tournament led to much uncertainty for the coaches, players, and NCAA as a whole. Many people were very disappointed and had wished it was just delayed, rather than completely being cancelled. Unfortunately, this pandemic really affected the seniors on the teams, considering their last season just got abruptly taken from them. The NCAA eventually granted an extra year of eligibility to all student-athletes enrolled in 2020 in recognition of the fact that many of them had lost a full season of competition or chance at a national championship through no fault of their own. However, many of the seniors were projected to be picked in the NBA draft, so this led to the difficult decision of playing one more year with their college teammates or moving on to the big stage. In 2021, the tournament was able to take place, albeit at a centralized "bubble" for both genders and with many games held without fans in attendance to limit COVID-19 exposure. The men's tournament was held at sites in and near
Indianapolis,
Indiana, while the women's tournament was centered in
San Antonio,
Texas.
Baylor was the Men's 2021 NCAA Champions. In 2022, Kansas won the tournament, defeating
North Carolina in the championship. For the women's competition, the 2021 champions were
Stanford, who defeated Arizona in a very close game. In 2022, the women's NCAA champions was South Carolina, defeating
UConn in the championship. LSU's women and UConn's men were the 2023 national champions, defeating Iowa and San Diego State, respectively, in the championship games.
National Invitation Tournament (NIT) Racial integration Racial integration of all-white collegiate sports teams was high on the regional agenda in the 1950s and 1960s. These issues included inequality, racism, and the alumni demand for the top players needed to win high-profile games. The
Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) took the lead. "College basketball data allow for direct comparisons of the racial differences in the marginal revenues generated by players" (Brown and Jewell 1995). First they started to schedule integrated teams from the North. The wake-up call came in 1966 when
Don Haskins's
Texas Western College team with
five black starters defeated the all-white University of Kentucky team to win the NCAA national basketball championship. This happened at a time when there weren't any black varsity basketball players in either the
Southeastern Conference or the
Southwest Conference. Finally ACC schools—typically under pressure from boosters and civil rights groups—integrated their teams. With an alumni base that dominated local and state politics, society and business, the ACC flagship schools were successful in their endeavor—as Pamela Grundy argues, they had learned how to win: : The widespread admiration that athletic ability inspired would help transform athletic fields from grounds of symbolic play to forces for social change, places where a wide range of citizens could publicly and at times effectively challenge the assumptions that cast them as unworthy of full participation in U.S. society. While athletic successes would not rid society of prejudice or stereotype—black athletes would continue to confront racial slurs...[minority star players demonstrated] the discipline, intelligence, and poise to contend for position or influence in every arena of national life.
Suspension of Yale University In 1969, for the first time, the NCAA Council did not permit participation by American college basketball players in the
Maccabiah Games. The Maccabiah Games are an international multi-sport event held in Israel, open to all Jewish athletes from around the world, and to all Israeli citizens regardless of their religion. In 1961 the Games were declared a "Regional Sports Event" by, and under the auspices and supervision of, the
International Olympic Committee. The NCAA failed to permit such participation by American college basketball players despite the fact that it had permitted such participation in the past and continued to permit participation by American college athletes in other Maccabiah Games sports, such as swimming, track, fencing, and soccer. Basketball was different, however. In that the
Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) – with which the NCAA was locked in a bitter power struggle – was for the first time organizing the Team USA basketball team for the Maccabiah Games, a role that had formerly been held by the NCAA. NCAA executive director
Walter Byers, whom the
Harvard Crimson described as "power-mad" and others described as a "petty tyrant", headed the NCAA and was involved in the decision. In 1969—against the wishes of the NCAA—
Yale University Jewish center
Jack Langer played for Team United States at the
1969 Maccabiah Games in Israel. He did so with the approval of Yale President
Kingman Brewster, the university said it would not stop Langer from "what we feel is a matter of religious freedom," and all Ivy League presidents fully endorsed Yale's stand. Thereafter, Yale played Langer in basketball games the following season. A special assistant to the President of Yale, Henry Chauncey Jr., said: "There is no question that Jack Langer will continue to play basketball. We don't care what they do - Jack Langer will play when the coach wants to use him." On January 15, 1970, the NCAA Council placed Yale University on two‐year "full athletic
probation" in all sports. It thereby restricted Yale teams and athletes (not just basketball players) for two years from competing in NCAA tournaments, championships and other postseason competitions, and from receiving any money for televised events. The decision impacted 300 Yale students, every Yale student on its sports teams, over the next two years. The Presidents of the other seven Ivy League schools issued a statement condemning the NCAA's actions in regard to the "Langer Case". In February 1970, Representative
Robert N. Giaimo (D-Connecticut) said in the
U.S. Congress:
Original rules The original rules for basketball were very different from today's modern rules of the sport, including the use of eight players per side.
James Naismith established 13 original rules: • The ball may be thrown in any direction with one or both hands. • The ball may be batted in any direction with one or both hands, but never with the fist. • A player cannot run with the ball. The player must throw it from the spot on which he catches it, with allowance to be made for a man who catches the ball when running at a good speed. • The ball must be held by the hands. The arms or body must not be used for holding it. • No shouldering, holding, pushing, striking, or tripping in any way of an opponent is allowed. The first infringement of this rule by any person shall count as a foul; the second shall disqualify him until the next goal is made or, if there was evident intent to injure the person, for the whole of the game. No substitution shall be allowed. • A foul will be called when a player is seen striking at the ball with the fist, or when violations of rules 3 and 4 and such as described in rule 5 have been made. • If either side makes three consecutive fouls it shall count as a goal for the opponents ("consecutive" means without the opponents in the meantime making a foul). • A goal shall be made when the ball is thrown or batted from the grounds into the basket and stays there, providing those defending the goal do not touch or disturb the goal. If the ball rests on the edges, and the opponent moves the basket, it shall count as a goal. • When the ball goes out of bounds, it shall be thrown into the field and played by the first person touching it. In case of dispute the umpire shall throw it straight into the field. The thrower-in is allowed five seconds. If he holds it longer, it shall go to the opponent. If any side persists in delaying the game, the umpire shall call a foul on them. • The umpire shall be the judge of the men and shall note the fouls and notify the referee when three consecutive fouls have been made. He shall have power to disqualify men according to rule 5. • The referee shall be judge of the ball and shall decide when the ball is in play, in bounds, to which side it belongs, and shall keep the time. He shall decide when a goal has been made and keep account of the goals, with any other duties that are usually performed by a referee. • The time shall be two fifteen-minute halves, with five minutes rest between. • The side making the most goals in that time shall be declared the winner.
History of NCAA basketball rule changes The following is a list of some of the major NCAA Basketball rule changes with the year they went into effect.
One-and-done and suspension rule The one-and-done rule has been a part of college basketball since 2006, the first NBA draft it affected. The rule was created by NBA Commissioner, David Stern, which changed the draft age from 18 years old to 19 years old. This change meant players could not be drafted into the NBA straight out of high school. Instead, however, they usually went to a college to play only one season before entering the following NBA draft when they were eligible, hence the name one-and-done. The first player to be drafted during this "one-and-done era" was
Tyrus Thomas, a forward out of
Louisiana State, who was drafted fourth overall in 2006. Along with the one and done rule, they also added the rule of players not being allowed to participate in any professional or NBA camps or activities until they are officially done with college basketball, and if any one is to break this rule it results in a one-game suspension. ==Conferences==