A History of the NCAA Basketball National Championship Trophy
A national championship at the highest level of men's college basketball, currently NCAA Division I, is a designation awarded annually to the best college basketball team in the United States. The national championship is currently won by the champion of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, a single-elimination tournament played to determine the men's Division I basketball champion.
Early Claims to a National Championship
The concept of a national championship in college basketball dates back to the earliest years of the sport in the 1890s. James Naismith's original announcement of the new game of "Basket Ball" and the sport's original 13 rules were published in the January 1892 issue of The Triangle, a magazine published by the students of the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Early on, various organizations and teams laid claim to the title of national champion. For example, the university [of Minnesota] basket-ball team, which has successfully concluded a very hard schedule, is out with the claim to the national championship. The team played sixteen games during the season and did not meet with a single defeat. Minnesota claims the amateur basket ball championship of the United States. After this [Yale] game the title of national college champions was claimed for the team. A month later the Company E team of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, was disposed of. This aggregation had held the national amateur championship for two years and had lost it the season before to Ravenswood by a single point. By this victory the title not only of college champions but the championship of all amateur teams of the country accrued to Minnesota.
Similarly, the Williams basketball team considered her team the intercollegiate champions of America. The Williams team has lost but two games out of the twenty-two played, and by reason of pronounced victories over the strongest college teams in the country. The only disputant to the title won by Williams is Columbia, but the latter five has only played one team of any strength-Yale. St. John's College basketball team has just ended the most successful season in the history of the sport at the institution, going through the year without a defeat. Coach Allen and Captain Keenan are so pleased with the work of the quintet that they are claiming the intercollegiate championship.
Hiram College won the Olympic college basketball championship at the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis. Hiram competed in a round-robin competition with two other American schools, Wheton College and Latter-day Saints' University, winning both of their games.
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The Rise of the NIT and NCAA Tournaments
The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) was established in 1938, one year before the NCAA tournament. The first NCAA tournament was organized by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. Oregon won the inaugural tournament, defeating Ohio State 46-33 in the first championship game.
During the early years of the two tournaments the NIT and NCAA competed against each other, giving rise to debate over their relative prowess. During the next two decades the relative status of the two tournaments was unclear, and thus some years produced disputed national championship claims between the tournament winners.
In 1950, the City College of New York became the first and only team to complete the "grand slam" of college basketball by winning the NIT and NCAA tournaments in the same year. Through shrewd competitive actions the NCAA positioned its tournament to match and then surpass the NIT. Fallout from the 1951 point-shaving scandal severely damaged the reputation of the NIT and basketball in New York City; the NCAA seized the initiative by abandoning scandal-plagued Madison Square Garden and expanding its tournament field to include more conference champions.
The NCAA Tournament's Ascendancy
The UCLA dynasty under head coach John Wooden, who won 10 national championships in the NCAA tournament between 1964 and 1975, further cemented the NCAA's dominance as did the tournament's expansion to 32 and then 64 teams.
Among the claims are all of the NCAA tournament championships won since 1939. Some NIT championship seasons are claimed as national championships from years in which the Invitation was still a top-tier postseason tournament. Nevertheless, the NCAA champion has for several years been regarded as the national champion and the winner certainly has more right to the acclaim than the national football champion, which is decided by popular vote. At least, the NCAA champion earns the honor by competing against other top-ranking quintets of the nation. However, it was not always that the NCAA champ was universally regarded as the national titleholder. In fact, the NIT can boast of beating the NCAA to the punch if a consensus is taken.
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The popularity of the two tournaments did not fully preclude other teams from being lauded with national championship honors. In 1944 undefeated 15-0 Army was honored by the Helms Athletic Foundation and was the No. 1 team in the final post-tournament Converse-Dunkel Basketball Forecast. In 1954 25-0 SEC champions Kentucky were the top team in the nation, but three of the team's star players were ruled ineligible for post-season play by the NCAA due to graduation. Head coach Adolph Rupp kept the team out of the competition in protest; the Wildcats retained their No.
The Helms Foundation of Los Angeles selected the national college men's basketball champions from 1942 to 1982 and researched retroactive picks from 1901 to 1941. A project to determine top teams from the pre-tournament era retroactively concluded that the Jayhawks were college basketball's best team during the years of Babe Ruth, the Model T and Prohibition. When it came to college basketball, Schroeder solicited opinions from coaches and sportswriters around the country.
The NABC National Championship Trophy
Each year, the NCAA Division I men’s basketball national champion is awarded the iconic NABC National Championship Trophy. The one-of-a-kind Waterford Crystal trophy is presented to the winning head coach following the Division I National Championship Game.
The NABC National Championship Trophy was first awarded in the 1990-91 season. Since its inception, the trophy has been produced by the Blackdog Group. The hand-blown trophy, which is cut and polished in Waterford, Ireland, is individually made and takes three months to create.
Historical Achievements
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has been the most successful college in the NCAA Tournament, winning 11 national titles. Ten of those championships came during a 12-year stretch from 1964 to 1975. UCLA also holds the record for the most consecutive championships, winning seven in a row from 1967 to 1973. Kentucky has the second-most titles, with eight. North Carolina and Connecticut are tied for third with six championships each, while Duke and Indiana follow with five each.
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Among head coaches, John Wooden is the all-time leader with 10 championships; he coached UCLA during their period of success in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Maryland women's basketball team won the NCAA championship four years later when they defeated Duke University in a thrilling overtime battle, 78-75.
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