NCAA Tournament started 70 years ago, before madness set in

Klotz laughs. "No one had a jump shot back then," says Klotz, who founded the Washington Generals and toured for years as the perennial "opponent" of the Harlem Globetrotters. "And, yes, we had a heck of a freshman team in 1940. But it was so unlike it is today in terms of athleticism."

From what can be ascertained from the Inquirer report, Villanova handled "the standard-bearer of the New England area" with relative ease that evening in 1939. Klein wrote floridly: "Contrary to advance warning, Brown came here without the band of eagle-eyed sharpshooters who could cut the cords from mid-floor. Even broad-shouldered Harry Platt, who scored 240 points for the New Englanders this semester, was conspicuously silent in the early stages. Later he got going and tabbed seven markers."

Coached by Al Severance, the Wildcats cruised to 42-30 victory. They were led in scoring by the 5-9 Krutulis, "who hit the hoops for a half-dozen field goals and a brace of singletons for 14 points." Montgomery added an even dozen. Klein reported that Villanova "took almost twice as many shots at the scoring strings" than Brown, who "hindered themselves considerably by frequent misses of easy lay-up tosses." But that victory would spell the end of the line for Villanova, who faced off the following day with a "sky-scrapper squad" from Ohio State.

The Buckeyes had crushed Wake Forest, 64-52.

And they whipped the Wildcats even worse, 53-36. Hull scored 28 points.

Had anyone known what the NCAA basketball tournament would eventually become, chances are someone would have held on to more stuff from 1939. But there are only a few old photographs still around, of young men with slicked-back hair, tight-fitting shorts and kneepads. The National Invitation Tournament had began the previous year and remained the big event on the college basketball calendar for years, in part because it was played in New York at the premier arena of the day, Madison Square Garden. But according to Gary Johnson, the NCAA associate director of statistics, that began to change in the early 1950s.

"Some of it had to do with the betting scandals that surrounded New York basketball back then," he says. "But there were other factors involved: Conference champions began getting automatic bids; television began showing it live; and the tournament field began to grow, from eight teams to 16 in 1950 and so on to 32, 40 and later to the current 65."

Some are now clamoring for the field to be doubled in size.

Millions of dollars are now involved.

And people wager on office pools.

"It sure has come a long way," Paul says. "No one could have imagined it."

Even the Inquirer reporter assigned to the story that evening. In what can only be looked upon now as a telling irony, he overlooked the fact that the Villanova-Brown story was the first-ever NCAA Tournament basketball game. He did not know he was covering history. *