Portal:College basketball/Intro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
College basketball most often refers to the American basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA.
Basketball was invented by James Naismith in 1891. The first intercollegiate game was played on February 9, 1895, when the Minnesota State School of Agriculture (now the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus) defeated Hamline College by a score of 9 to 3. The first intercollegiate game involving the now familiar five-player format occurred in Iowa City, Iowa on January 18, 1896, when the University of Chicago defeated the University of Iowa 15 to 12. Before that time, there were usually seven to nine players on each team.
By the turn of the 20th Century, enough colleges were fielding basketball teams that leagues began to form. The NCAA was founded in Chicago in 1906. The first NCAA Men's College Basketball Championship tournament was held before 5,500 fans in Evanston, Illinois in 1939. That year, Oregon beat Ohio State 46 to 33 in the final game to win the national championship.
