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.

1941: Basketball

This is a great game of clean sportsmanship, spell-binding action, enormous spectator interest and big figures. It is estimated that about 90,000,000 admissions were paid during 1941 by spectators at college, school and club games, including the spectacular post-season double-header extravaganzas by 'name' teams among sectional and conference title winners played in Madison Square Garden, New York, Kansas City, Chicago, Boston and elsewhere. Attendance records for Madison Square Garden were shattered when 247,023 fans witnessed the regularly scheduled double-headers, including 70,826 at the invitation tournament.

Among many sports authorities, general acknowledgment of superiority goes to Long Island University and Wisconsin. The Brooklyn Blackbirds and the Madison (Wis.) Badgers emerged on top of the heap in a season that aroused greater interest and drew larger 'gates' throughout the country. L. I. U. came from behind to conquer Ohio University, 56-42 in the final of the national invitation tournament at Madison Square Garden. Wisconsin, having annexed the Big Ten championship, went on to beat Washington State in the N. C. A. A. final at Kansas City.

To pick America's outstanding basketball player is difficult, yet sports writers agree that Frank Baumholtz of Ohio U. should be chosen because he came through with a sensational performance in the final of the Ohio-Long Island game, justifying the nomination. Ossie Schectman, of L. I. U., was the second choice. In the competitions in and around New York, the Seton Hall (N. J.) five scored 42 consecutive triumphs, with the great Bob Davies in the line-up. Yet this same team succumbed to L. I. U. by the wide score of 49-26.

The championship of the Pacific Coast went to Washington State, while Dartmouth romped off with the Eastern Intercollegiate League honors for the fourth year in a row. Duke succeeded North Carolina in the Southern conference, and Arkansas dethroned Rice in the Southwest. Wyoming is the new Rocky Mountain Big Seven leader. Tennessee captured the Southeastern Conference title, and Kansas and Iowa shared the Big Six crown. The National Y. M. C. A. title was won by the Division Street team of Chicago. The Eastern Athletic Club title was won by the Columbus Council K. of C. team.

The National A. A. U. title was taken in great style by the fast stepping Hollywood Twentieth Century quintet, defeating the San Francisco Olympic Club, after nosing out the defending champion, Phillips 66 Oilers of Oklahoma. Voted to the All-American basketball team were Angelo Luisetti, Frank Lubin, Carl Knowles and Ralph Grannini, of the Olympic Club, and Chet Carlisle, of Oakland, Cal., former University of California captain. The Metropolitan (N. Y.) A. A. U. title was taken by the fast Ahrbach A. A. team for the third year.

1940: Basketball

Basketball again asserted itself as the kingpin of American indoor sports, growing to new record proportions all over the United States. The game, now in its fiftieth year, earned many new records in 1940 — nearly 90,000,000 persons saw the game played. Madison Square Garden, New York, staged fifteen intercollegiate double headers that made new court history, with 212,672 spectators for the season, 18,318 for the largest single evening, and an average attendance of 14,178. These figures are an indication of the great popularity of the game all over the land.

The technique and coaching of the game have vastly improved. Almost a score of college teams finished the season well up in number of victories, yet none scored a monopoly. Although it is impossible to pick an All-American team from hundreds of skillful players, it is possible to select outstanding teams that excelled in major conference, intersectional and post-season tournaments and competitions.

The evenly matched struggles that characterized the sport this year were seen in upsets of teams picked to win, and ties between the leaders. Without regard to their proper order in college competition, Indiana won the N. C. A. A. tournament, captured 20 of 23 games, and was runner-up to Purdue in the Big Ten Conference. Colorado, invincible in New York by winning the third annual intercollegiate invitation tournament, clinched its third straight championship of the Rocky Mountain Big Seven, but fell by the wayside in a divisional semi-final of the N. C. A. A.

Purdue won the Big Ten championship, the thirteenth time to share in or win the title. There was a three-way tie for the Big Six Conference title between Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, after Kansas was eliminated in the finals of the N. C. A. A. Oklahoma A. and M. led in the Missouri Valley Conference, placed third in the national invitation tourney, and won 25 straight games. Southern California won the Pacific Coast Conference and was runner-up to Kansas in Western N. C. A. A. playoffs. Another college team among the country's leaders was New York University, Metropolitan champion, winner of 18 games out of 19.

Dartmouth was champion of the Eastern League for the third straight year; Rice was the winner of the Southwestern Conference for the first time since 1918, and third in Western N. C. A. A. play-offs; Kentucky won the Southeastern Conference title after Alabama and Tennessee had shown better pre-tournament play. Two new names appeared in title fixtures: Millsaps College, winner of the Dixie Conference, and Tarkio College, winner of the Kansas City invitation tournament in which 32 small colleges participated.

In A. A. U. circles, the national championship was won by the Phillips Oilers team, of Bartlesville, Okla., over the previous year's victors, the Denver 'Nuggets.' Twenty-five states were represented in this tournament, held in Denver, bringing together a variance of styles of play. Following this tourney, sports writers and officials selected an All-American A. A. U. team comprising five Denver players and four Phillips players. The leading team among the district associations of the A. A. U. was the Ohrbach A. A. quintette, of New York, Metropolitan champions.

1939: Basketball

Basketball moved up in popularity as a major indoor sport during 1939, bringing an appreciable financial return and considerable prestige to every college in the United States boasting one or more teams. Not only did the game play to larger numbers than ever before, an estimated gallery of 5,000,000 persons (in New York 196,000 saw fourteen doubleheaders), but many college teams traveled long distances to compete. The playing rules of the game went unchanged during the year. The sport lost its chief mentor in the death of Dr. John W. Naismith, who started the game in 1891 and saw it grow to its present massive proportions.

In the Amateur Athletic Union, the Denver Nuggets captured the national championship title from the Phillips University team, of Enid, Okla., in a game played on its home court, where the title has been decided for the past six years. The Galveston (Tex.) Anico's won the national title in the women's division of the A.A.U., which had the distinction of being coached by a woman, Miss Frances Williams, the first woman to coach a champion women's team.

The team of Long Island University won 42 consecutive games in the East, a standard never before attained by a major college team. Its counterpart in the West is the team of the University of Oregon, which defeated Ohio State for the N.C.A.A. title. Among many sectional championships and doubleheaders, the Metropolitan (N. Y.) Basketball Writers' Association attracted 50,572 persons to Madison Square Garden during the three evenings of its second annual national invitation tournament.

In other sectional championships, Rhode Island State captured the New England Conference crown for the third year in succession, with an average of 70 points during its twenty-one game schedule. Chet Jaworski, its leading player, shot 477 points, making himself a claimant for national high-scoring honors. The United States Military Academy showed its best team in many years: its only losses were to Ohio State, the Western Conference winner, and to St. John's, which took the metropolitan championship.

Dartmouth, in winning the crown in the Eastern Intercollegiate League, repeated its previous year's victory. Its sophomore star, Gus Broberg, scored 159 points for a new league record. The only tie in the various tournaments was that of Carnegie and Georgetown, playing for the Eastern Intercollegiate Conference title.

In the South where basketball is making great headway, Clemson College (S. C.) captured the Southern Conference crown from Maryland, which had been playing in the big-time games all season, in spite of Lake Forest's having the best average in the group. Kentucky teams did well. Kentucky College won the Southeastern Conference, and west Kentucky State Teachers captured the Southern Intercollegiate A.A. title. The Dixie Conference victory went to the strong Mississippi College quintette.

1938: Basketball

Basketball this year continued to rank first in point of popularity in the winter sport arenas. In the finals of the leading United States intercollegiate basketball tourney, which the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association hope to make the 'Basketball World Series,' Temple University's crack six-foot-four college basketball team overwhelmed Colorado University before a crowd of 14,400 in Madison Square Garden, New York City, with a score of 60-36. In the third place play-offs of this tourney held the same evening, March 16, Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College defeated New York University 37-24.

On March 19, in the finals of the Amateur Athletic Union's National Basketball Championships held at Denver, Colo., the Kansas City Healeys defeated the Denver Safeways, 1937 champions, in an overtime play with a score of 40-38. In the women's finals of this tourney, held March 26 at Wichita, Kansas, the Galveston Anicos overcame the Wichita Thurstons with a score of 13-8, thus winning the National Women's basketball crown.

In conference and league circles, Dartmouth captured the Eastern Intercollegiate League title, winning eight league games and losing four. Harvard and Pennsylvania followed, each winning seven and losing five games. Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and Yale ranked in that order. In the Middle West, Purdue's powerful five won for the fifth time the Big Ten Conference title.

In the South, Duke University defeated Clemson College, 40-30, in the Southern Conference tournament held March 5, at Raleigh, N. C., winning the Southern championship. The Georgia Institute of Technology beat Mississippi College with a score of 58-47, capturing the Southeastern Conference championship, while at Bowling Green, Ky., on the same day, March 5, the Western Kentucky team obtained the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association's League Championship for the second consecutive year, defeating Murray College, 44-39. On the Pacific Coast, the Pacific Coast League Championship was won for the second consecutive year by Stanford's impressive quintet, defeating Oregon, the Northern Division Champion, two straight games, 52-39 and 59-51 in the play-offs held March 11-12 at San Francisco.

A United States basketball team composed of players from Eastern colleges and representing the Amateur Athletic Union toured South America, playing games in Chile, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. The United States team won twenty of the twenty-four games played.

In the American Professional Basketball League, the Jersey Reds defeated the Brooklyn Jewels with a score of 30-28 in a close game of the play-offs, winning the League championship. The New York Celtics and the Brooklyn Visitations of this League were eliminated from the finals.