1942: Basketball

The sport of basketball experienced many surprises and thrills during 1942, as well as topping all attendance records for the season. Stanford and West Virginia are the two institutions of learning whose teams scored triumphs in two major post-season tournaments, gaining top honors. The college teams from coast to coast further established basketball as a winter attraction of broader interest and appeal.

Stanford gained the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, defeating the stalwart Dartmouth team in the final at Kansas City, topping a field including Illinois, Penn State, Kentucky, Colorado, Kansas and Rice. Stanford also won the Pacific Coast Conference title.

West Virginia's dramatic successes in the national invitation tournament at Madison Square Garden, New York, completely reversed the ratings. Seeded last, this team defeated (L.I.U.) Long Island University, the previous winner, Toledo, Western Kentucky, Rhode Island, West Texas State and City College (New York).

The leading service team, Great Lakes Naval Training Station, won thirty of thirty-five games against strong college teams, thereby adding lustre to the game even in the face of changing conditions due to the war.

The Big Ten crown went to Illinois, winning thirteen and losing two. The Denver American Legion team defeated the Phillips 66 Oilers of Bartlesville, Okla., for the National A. A. U. crown.

The Southeastern Conference title was won by Kentucky, after Tennessee had finished the season at the top of the standing. In the Southern Conference games Duke led. Rice and Arkansas tied for the Southwest Conference title; Oklahoma A. and M. and Creighton tied for the Missouri Valley crown, and Kansas and Oklahoma for the Big Six pennant. Rhode Island won the New England Conference with eight straight wins.

In Metropolitan New York, City College captured the intracity crown for the second year straight, winning all six games against local rivals and clinching the victory two-fold by defeating L.I.U., which marked up a record of twenty-four wins and two losses in a post-season contest for the Army Emergency Relief Fund.

The leading college player of the year was Stutz Modzelewski, of Rhode Island, who achieved a new four-year scoring record of 1,730 points, as against 1,500 established by Hank Luisetti, of Stanford.

Basketball continues to be America's leading spectator-sport colossus, with upwards of 90,000,000 admissions (95 per cent paid) at games played by schools, colleges, universities, service teams and other amateur aggregations. Basketball's new high in 1942 centered in Madison Square Garden where 380,571 people paid to see the game: 268,433 spectators saw the eighteen scheduled double-headers, plus 25,256 for a two-day pre-season A. A. U. tournament, 70,631 for the four-night invitation tournament, and 16,251 for the Army Relief double-header.