NCAA tourney anniversaries

A look back at some NCAA tourney anniversaries this year:

70 years ago (1940)
National champion: Indiana
Semifinalists: Kansas, Duquesne, USC Teams in field: Eight
Notes: Indiana claimed its first national championship by defeating Kansas 60-42 in Kansas City in the second year of the tournament. The deliberate Jayhawks, led by coach Phog Allen, couldn’t keep up with the “Hurryin’ Hoosiers,” who ran an up-tempo offense. The title was the first of two for Indiana coach Branch McCracken.

65 years ago (1945)
National champion: Oklahoma A&M
Semifinalists: NYU, Arkansas, Ohio State
Teams in the field: Eight
Notes: At the time, the Oklahoma State Cowboys were known as the Oklahoma A&M Aggies. They defeated NYU 49-45 for the first of two consecutive national titles, thanks to the play of 7-footer Bob Kurland, whose defensive prowess led to the NCAA banning goaltending. After the tournament, coach Henry Iba and the Aggies defeated DePaul 52-44 in the final American Red Cross benefit game between NCAA and NIT champions.

60 years ago (1950)
National champion: CCNY (City College of New York)
Semifinalists: Bradley, Baylor, North Carolina State
Teams in the field: Eight
Notes: CCNY enjoyed its limited time in the spotlight before it all came crashing down. Unranked CCNY won the NCAA championship by defeating three of the top five teams in the country. The Beavers were trailblazers at the time as one of the few teams with black starters. They are also the only team to win the NCAA tournament and NIT in the same season. The success was short-lived as the program was brought down by game-fixing and academic scandals in the following seasons.

55 years ago (1955)
National champion: San Francisco
Semifinalists: La Salle, Colorado, Iowa
Teams in the field: 24
Notes: Bill Russell led San Francisco to the first of two consecutive national championships. The Dons defeated defending national champion La Salle in the title game as Russell averaged 23.5 points in the tournament and got the best of La Salle star Tom Gola in the final.

50 years ago (1960)
National champion: Ohio State
Semifinalists: California, NYU, Cincinnati
Teams in the field: 25
Notes: Defense doesn’t always win championships. High-scoring Ohio State, led by second-year coach Fred Taylor, defeated Cal 75-55 for the national title in an offense-vs.-defense championship game. Coach Pete Newell, who led Cal to the 1959 title, retired at the end of the season. The national semifinals featured two other Hall of Famers - Oscar Robertson starred for Cincinnati, while Bob Knight was a reserve for Ohio State.

45 years ago (1965)
National champion: UCLA
Semifinalists: Michigan, Wichita State, Princeton
Teams in the field: 23
Notes: The UCLA dynasty was still in its infancy in 1965, when the Bruins won their second consecutive title. The Bruins certainly weren’t the stars of the tournament that year. Cazzie Russell-led Michigan was the top-ranked team going into the tournament, and the Bruins weren’t a given to win their first-round game against BYU in Provo, Utah. By the time of the national semifinals, Princeton was the major story thanks to guard Bill Bradley, who would become an NBA star, a U.S. Senator and a presidential candidate. Through the rest of the ’60s and into the ’70s, UCLA would receive second billing to no one.

40 years ago (1970)
National champion: UCLA
Semifinalists: Jacksonville, New Mexico State, St. Bonaventure
Teams in the field: 25
Notes: A year after Lew Alcindor graduated, the Bruins won their sixth national championship overall and their fourth in a row. Without Alcindor, who eventually changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, UCLA’s small but quick team still shut down Jacksonville’s huge front line, which featured 7-2 center Artis Gilmore, 7-0 forward Pembrook Burrows III (who became a Florida Highway Patrolman) and 6-10 Rod McIntyre. This tournament also is notable for Notre Dame’s Austin Carr, who poured in 61 points in the first round against Ohio, still the tournament’s single-game scoring record.

35 years ago (1975)
National champion: UCLA
Semifinalists: Kentucky, Louisville, Syracuse
Teams in the field: 32
Notes: UCLA won its 10th national championship and the last of the John Wooden era. Wooden had to go through former assistant Denny Crum and Louisville in the semifinal to win his last title. Wooden became the first coach to end his career by winning the NCAA title in his last game (Marquette’s Al McGuire did it in 1977 and Kansas’ Larry Brown did it in 1988, though Brown went on to coach in the NBA). North Carolina began a run of 27 consecutive tournament appearances this season; that remains the NCAA record. In addition, the tournament adopted a 32-team format whereby two teams from a conference could receive a bid; previously, only one team per league received a bid. This tourney also saw the first reference to “final four” in the “Official Collegiate Basketball Guide,” coined by Ed Chay of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The term would be capitalized in 1978.

30 years ago (1980)
National champion: Louisville
Semifinalists: UCLA, Iowa, Purdue
Teams in the field: 48
Notes: Denny Crum won the rematch with his former employer five years later, this time against Bruins coach Larry Brown. This was the first season with a 48-team field and came on the heels of recently imposed scholarship limits (from 25 to 15). This also was the second year that the field was seeded. Despite being seeded eighth, the Bruins reached the championship game in a run that would be vacated for recruiting violations. Lute Olson, then the coach of Iowa, reached his first Final Four this season.

25 years ago (1985)
National champion: Villanova
Semifinalists: Georgetown, Memphis State, St. John’s
Teams in the field: 64
Notes: This was the first year with a 64-team field. Villanova shocked everyone by winning the national title as a No. 8 seed, still the lowest-seeded team to win the championship. Either Georgetown or St. John’s spent the entire season ranked first or second in the polls, but Villanova – the other Big East team in the Final Four – was 22-of-28 from the field in a 66-64 upset of the Patrick Ewing-led Hoyas in the title game.

20 years ago (1990)
National champion: UNLV
Semifinalists: Duke, Georgia Tech, Arkansas
Teams in the field: 64
Notes: Jerry Tarkanian’s UNLV team didn’t have the best off-court reputation, but the Runnin’ Rebels were nearly unstoppable on the court. UNLV dismantled Duke 103-73 in the championship game; UNLV remains the only team to score in triple digits in the title game, and its margin of victory also is the largest in history. The story of the tournament, though, was 11th-seeded Loyola Marymount. All-America center Hank Gathers died on the court during a West Coast Conference tourney quarterfinal. Teammate Bo Kimble, a righty, shot his first free throw of each NCAA tourney game left-handed in a tribute to Gathers. The freewheeling Lions upset sixth-seeded New Mexico State (111-92), third-seeded Michigan (149-115) and seventh-seeded Alabama (62-60) on the way to the regional final. UNLV ended Loyola Marymount’s run with a 131-101 victory to advance to the Final Four. The 149 points scored by the Lions against the Wolverines, who were the defending national champions, is the highest point total in an NCAA tourney game. Loyola Marymount hasn’t been back to the tournament since. Gathers would’ve turned 43 on Feb. 11 of this year.

15 years ago (1995)
National champion: UCLA
Semifinalists: Arkansas, Oklahoma State, North Carolina
Teams in the field: 64
Notes: UCLA won its first national championship without Wooden behind the sterling play of Ed O’Bannon. Toby Bailey scored 26 points in the title game against defending champion Arkansas, a title-game record for a freshman. The Bruins won despite starting point guard Tyus Edney missing the game with an injury; Cameron Dollar, now the coach at Seattle, stepped in and played well. UCLA didn’t return to the Final Four until 2006, under Ben Howland.

10 years ago (2000)
National champion: Michigan State
Semifinalists: Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina
Teams in the field: 64
Notes: Behind coach Tom Izzo and point guard Mateen Cleaves, Michigan State returned to the Final Four for the first time since the Magic Johnson days in 1979. The Spartans were the only No. 1 seed to advance to the Final Four alongside No. 5 Florida and Nos. 8 Wisconsin (which defeated No. 1 Arizona in the second round) and North Carolina (which defeated No. 1 Stanford in the second round). Elsewhere in the tourney, sixth-seeded Indiana lost to 11th-seeded Pepperdine in the first round. It turned out to be Bob Knight’s final game with the Hoosiers before the late Myles Brand, then the IU president, fired him for violating a Brand-imposed no-tolerance policy. This was the last year with a 64-team field; it went to 65 in 2001.

Five years ago (2005)
National champion: North Carolina
Semifinalists: Illinois, Michigan State, Louisville
Teams in the field: 65
Notes: North Carolina won its first national title since 1993. After making four trips to the Final Four with Kansas, Tar Heels coach Roy Williams won his first national championship in his second season in Chapel Hill. Four North Carolina players would go on to be NBA lottery picks. Louisville coach Rick Pitino coached his third team to the Final Four (Providence, Kentucky and the Cardinals); he remains the only coach to accomplish that feat.