As large as the NCAA Tournament field is now, playing in the NIT and CBI tournaments are equivalent to all the bowls game minus the BCS ones in football. Great for fans of the teams but in the grand scheme of things, meaningless.

I'm old enough to have some vague recollection of that 57 championship game. I was in kindergarten and living in the Buntyn neighborhood and my dad and me and a bunch of neighbors went to the Fieldhouse for some sort of welcome home/congratulations ceremony for the Tigers after the loss.

Anyone else remember that?

(01-24-2013 09:47 PM)Latilleon Wrote:  

(01-24-2013 09:45 PM)dan o Wrote:  

(01-24-2013 09:43 PM)Latilleon Wrote:  I never checked into the history

That is obvious---again

What was the best team in 1957 dan o?

Bradley?

Look at the film of the last minute and then you decide

(01-24-2013 09:43 PM)Latilleon Wrote:  It's funny when people ask why a thread was started (I figure my OP was quite self-explanatory) and then they add to their belittling of a pointless thread by posting a pointless post for what they consider a pointless thread.

(01-24-2013 08:10 PM)JMSTiger Wrote:  It was a big deal to get into any of the postseason tournaments back then because there were so few teams playing in either the NCAA tournament or the NIT. As has been mentioned by others, the significance of the NIT had already started to decrease by the time the Tigers made it to the finals in 1957 (I would argue that the NCAA tournament became the bigger tournament far earlier, probably in the late 40's when Kentucky was already winning multiple national championships), but the NIT was still a far bigger deal than it is today, especially for an upstart program like Memphis State. I think what makes the NIT run in '57 so special is the fact that the Tigers got to the finals and came so close to winning (and the fact that the finals were broadcast on national TV and that was a massively big deal considering how little in the way of sports programming was available back then). I have always thought the fact that the program made it into the 1955 and 1956 NCAA tournaments (24 and 25 team tournaments respectively) as an independent was quite an accomplishment too, but it gets overlooked because the Tigers failed to advance both times.

The problem for me is that I have been sold by the PR and the Lapides stories that when Memphis State lost to Bradley, the game was practically for the national championship and the NIT was a bigger deal than the NCAA.

I never checked into the history, but even with a couple good teams, the NCAA tournament field was significantly better than the NIT field. The exposure of the NIT was great and I'm not questioning the pride, but as far as I see it, the accomplishment is not as great as I always thought it was from what I had been told.

If East Carolina won the NIT this year or next, it'll be a massive accomplishment to them.

OK.

The NCAA field had more ranked and higher ranked teams in it than the NIT did. Therefore it was a stronger field and is recognized as the National Championship tournament.

The NIT was a big deal, but evidently not as big of a deal as you had thought.

Hopefully you can finally get an honest night's sleep now.

As a young kid during that time I had never even heard of the NCAA tournament. As I recollect, winning the NIT championship was the gold medal of that time period. That's my perception.

(01-24-2013 08:10 PM)JMSTiger Wrote:  It was a big deal to get into any of the postseason tournaments back then because there were so few teams playing in either the NCAA tournament or the NIT. As has been mentioned by others, the significance of the NIT had already started to decrease by the time the Tigers made it to the finals in 1957 (I would argue that the NCAA tournament became the bigger tournament far earlier, probably in the late 40's when Kentucky was already winning multiple national championships), but the NIT was still a far bigger deal than it is today, especially for an upstart program like Memphis State. I think what makes the NIT run in '57 so special is the fact that the Tigers got to the finals and came so close to winning (and the fact that the finals were broadcast on national TV and that was a massively big deal considering how little in the way of sports programming was available back then). I have always thought the fact that the program made it into the 1955 and 1956 NCAA tournaments (24 and 25 team tournaments respectively) as an independent was quite an accomplishment too, but it gets overlooked because the Tigers failed to advance both times.

Best and most complete answer but I'd like to add something.

Memphis then felt like a large-sized, small town. Not saying it was but that's how it felt. There wasn't even liquor by the drink. And for the local college to compete on the main stage in NYC and almost win it, yeah, it was a really big deal.

FWIW the New York City point shaving scandals of the late 40s - early 50s help bring the demise of the NIT. Schools like CCNY, NYU, LIU, Manhattan, Fordham and St John's were all powers back then. St John's is the only school that really survived all that. But until UCLA's dynasty of the late 60s -early 70s, the NIT still had a lot of prestige.

The NCAA tourney had surpassed the NIT tourney in prestige by 1957.

Us playinig for the NIT championship was a big deal for us at the time.

(01-25-2013 07:47 AM)huddlha Wrote:  

(01-24-2013 08:10 PM)JMSTiger Wrote:  It was a big deal to get into any of the postseason tournaments back then because there were so few teams playing in either the NCAA tournament or the NIT. As has been mentioned by others, the significance of the NIT had already started to decrease by the time the Tigers made it to the finals in 1957 (I would argue that the NCAA tournament became the bigger tournament far earlier, probably in the late 40's when Kentucky was already winning multiple national championships), but the NIT was still a far bigger deal than it is today, especially for an upstart program like Memphis State. I think what makes the NIT run in '57 so special is the fact that the Tigers got to the finals and came so close to winning (and the fact that the finals were broadcast on national TV and that was a massively big deal considering how little in the way of sports programming was available back then). I have always thought the fact that the program made it into the 1955 and 1956 NCAA tournaments (24 and 25 team tournaments respectively) as an independent was quite an accomplishment too, but it gets overlooked because the Tigers failed to advance both times.

Best and most complete answer but I'd like to add something.

Memphis then felt like a large-sized, small town. Not saying it was but that's how it felt. There wasn't even liquor by the drink. And for the local college to compete on the main stage in NYC and almost win it, yeah, it was a really big deal.

Memphis still is a large-size small town. There are good and bad points to that.

The NCAA was bigger but the NIT featured Oscar Robertson and Elgin Baylor that year.

Memphis Roar basketball history has interesting stuff on it but the best is a reference to a flashback column by Bill Burke in the Memphis Flyer. After a bad loss at the end of the season, Vanatta played the NIT committee off the NCAA.

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/flas...id=1125054

Quote:Memphis State had had a successful season, even getting voted into the AP Top 10 a couple of times, but as I recall it, the Tigers closed the season losing to Centenary in Shreveport on a Saturday night. The team had been "on the bubble" for the NCAA; now it seemed that bubble might burst. I was then the school's first sports information director. I got a long-distance call Sunday morning from Coach Bob Vanatta informing me he had sent a Western Union telegram to the NIT selection committee, signing my name to it, informing them I had inside information the NCAA would be offering the Tigers a bid at noon Monday. Coach V was putting pressure on the NIT to get their invite in ahead of the NCAA's.

It worked. A couple hours later, the invite came, and Dr. C.C. Humphreys, then athletic director, accepted. Most people expected Memphis State to serve as cannon fodder to Utah, their first-round opponent on Saturday. But the Tigers, without a player over 6'5", won 77-75.

(more good stuff at the link)

Other interesting points as made in the Roar history -

- in the 1956 NCAA tournament, senior Forest Arnold and freshman Win Wilfong (a current and a future All American at the time), were prohibited from playing, along with 2 other Tiger starters. (yes we played without 4 of 5 starters). The reason was that the NCAA prohibited freshman players at the time, and by extension also prohibited 4 year players.

The Tigers could have really showed up in the national stage that year if not for those rules.


Also, while the NIT game was the first official game for the Tigers at MSG, the team actually played an exhibition game against the Knicks in the 52-53 season!

(01-25-2013 12:16 PM)3601 Wrote:  The NCAA tourney had surpassed the NIT tourney in prestige by 1957.

Link?

I wish Latilion would stop corrupting the word "we"

(01-26-2013 11:24 AM)Poorwill Wrote:  I wish Latilion would stop corrupting the word "we"

For sure!

He searched the internet just long enough to find a convenient story to support his claim, whether true, partially true, or abstractly false.

Any other answers are summarily rejected, and any sources expressing opposing view are dismissed/repudiated for a variety of reasons of his own making.