So I thought when the Tigers went into the 1957 NIT, the NIT was more significant than the NCAA tournament?

If that were true, why did the NCAA tourney in 1957 include the champions of the big conferences and most of the teams that were on the pre-season AP top ten?

So what's next? No one will give me a dollar for the teeth I put under my pillow?

If we are boasting about the 1957 NIT championship game, shouldn't we boast on the 2002 NIT championship?

This is a disappointing realization.

Significance is in the eye of the beholder I guess. In 1957, an NIT title was viewed as being much more significant than how it is viewed now. General consensus is that the NCAA Tournament surpassed the NIT in significance in the early to mid '50s (just prior to the Tigers '57 run).

(01-24-2013 01:24 PM)Derby Wrote:  Significance is in the eye of the beholder I guess. In 1957, an NIT title was viewed as being much more significant than how it is viewed now. General consensus is that the NCAA Tournament surpassed the NIT in significance in the early to mid '50s (just prior to the Tigers '57 run).

Not if the championship game was North Carolina beating AP #1 team Kansas with star player Wilt Chamberlain.

All the best teams in college basketball were in the NCAA tournament in 1957.

The NIT might have once been bigger than the NCAA's but not that season.

(01-24-2013 01:32 PM)Latilleon Wrote:  

(01-24-2013 01:24 PM)Derby Wrote:  Significance is in the eye of the beholder I guess. In 1957, an NIT title was viewed as being much more significant than how it is viewed now. General consensus is that the NCAA Tournament surpassed the NIT in significance in the early to mid '50s (just prior to the Tigers '57 run).

Not if the championship game was North Carolina beating AP #1 team Kansas with star player Wilt Chamberlain.

All the best teams in college basketball were in the NCAA tournament in 1957.

The NIT might have once been bigger than the NCAA's but not that season.

read the post again. He says that NCAA took over as top billing before the '57 season.

There were only 23 teams in the NCAA tourney in 1957. That left out a lot of good teams for the NIT.

(01-24-2013 01:39 PM)TigerTimmy Wrote:  There were only 23 teams in the NCAA tourney in 1957. That left out a lot of good teams for the NIT.

I'm certain that the quality of basketball in 1957 would mean that it's probably proportional to today's ratio of NCAA teams to NIT teams.

Still means that the best teams were in the NCAA and the NIT title game appearance is like appearing in the NIT today.

Just a quick scan of the 1957 NCAA and NIT fields showed the following:

NCAA participants ranked in top 20
#1 UNC
#2 Kansas
#3 UK
#4 SMU
#7 WVa
#9 OK City
#10 St Louis
#11 Michigan State
#16 Idaho St
#19 Canisius

NIT participants ranked in top 20
#5 Seattle
#12 Memphis
#19 Bradley

I did that very quickly so I may have missed some, but I believe that list to be representative of the differences in the tournaments.

It's pretty clear that the NIT of that era was a much different tournament than it is today. While not as strong of a field as the NCAA, it was a major tournament and the championship game was very important to us. Many people forget that we participated in the NCAA tournament in '55 and '56 prior to our '57 NIT participation.

(01-24-2013 01:13 PM)Latilleon Wrote:  So I thought when the Tigers went into the 1957 NIT, the NIT was more significant than the NCAA tournament?

If that were true, why did the NCAA tourney in 1957 include the champions of the big conferences and most of the teams that were on the pre-season AP top ten?

So what's next? No one will give me a dollar for the teeth I put under my pillow?

If we are boasting about the 1957 NIT championship game, shouldn't we boast on the 2002 NIT championship?

This is a disappointing realization.

Slow day, huh?

This is not new news.

But welcome to the "discovery."

The NIT was significantly bigger than it was today and winning it then was a much bigger deal. That is all.

Nice timing.

(01-24-2013 02:21 PM)roundhouse74 Wrote:  

(01-24-2013 01:13 PM)Latilleon Wrote:  So I thought when the Tigers went into the 1957 NIT, the NIT was more significant than the NCAA tournament?

If that were true, why did the NCAA tourney in 1957 include the champions of the big conferences and most of the teams that were on the pre-season AP top ten?

So what's next? No one will give me a dollar for the teeth I put under my pillow?

If we are boasting about the 1957 NIT championship game, shouldn't we boast on the 2002 NIT championship?

This is a disappointing realization.

Slow day, huh?

JMS's statistics on Bob Vanetta inspired me too read more about him, which led me too looking at the records.

But I fell for the spin prior to today.

"So I thought when the Tigers went into the 1957 NIT, the NIT was more significant than the NCAA tournament?"

Depends on who or what you're talking about. I will make the assumption you weren't a part of the world at that time. To the City of Memphis it was hugely important. First time I could remember anything or anyone from Memphis on television (only three stations then) other than Elvis. The City of Memphis was at a stand still. Even my mother watch who never watched sports on TV. I can't remember anything about the NCAA tournament. NCAA didn't start making a name until the early 60s.

Do you want to boast a championship in what is known as the Not Invited Tournament? A tournament run which included zero COUNT THEM ZERO


say it again with me
ZERO wins over top 25 teams, and a 6 point win over the power house Tennessee Tech squad. In reality we should have lost to Temple. They played without Lynn Greer who was averaging 23 points a game.

No school celebrates an NIT title anymore. Especially not Memphis. Our success in the years after had left us with more to be desired. When we win CUSA again this year, it'll be just another tune up for the NCAAs.

(01-24-2013 02:55 PM)Pressed Rat Wrote:  "So I thought when the Tigers went into the 1957 NIT, the NIT was more significant than the NCAA tournament?"

Depends on who or what you're talking about. I will make the assumption you weren't a part of the world at that time. To the City of Memphis it was hugely important. First time I could remember anything or anyone from Memphis on television (only three stations then) other than Elvis. The City of Memphis was at a stand still. Even my mother watch who never watched sports on TV. I can't remember anything about the NCAA tournament. NCAA didn't start making a name until the early 60s.

But isn't that before the basketball team had made any noise on the national scene?

If Arkansas State won the NIT, they might shut down Northeast Arkansas.

But the NCAA tournament of 1957 with a championship game of Kansas and North Carolina disputes NCAA not making a name until the 60's.

i enjoy it when my team wins a tournament...any tournament.

(01-24-2013 02:55 PM)Pressed Rat Wrote:  "So I thought when the Tigers went into the 1957 NIT, the NIT was more significant than the NCAA tournament?"

Depends on who or what you're talking about. I will make the assumption you weren't a part of the world at that time. To the City of Memphis it was hugely important. First time I could remember anything or anyone from Memphis on television (only three stations then) other than Elvis. The City of Memphis was at a stand still. Even my mother watch who never watched sports on TV. I can't remember anything about the NCAA tournament. NCAA didn't start making a name until the early 60s.

If you weren't around in that era, I suppose it doesn't seem important and it's hard to put that in perspective of TV coverage. Just to help a bit, the 1957 NCAA tournament had it's largest coverage in its history.....11 stations.

Arguing the importance of a basketball tournament that happened over 50 years ago seems silly but we had just become a "university" that was wasn't nationally known for anything.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/13/sports...all&src=pm

Quote:Into its third decade, the tournament faced a major perception problem. Carolina's victory over Chamberlain in 1957 was observed by the most intense coverage the tournament had known: a television network of 11 stations, a 73-station radio network in 11 states, and 64 newspaper reporters. Eddie Einhorn, now the president of the Chicago White Sox but then a senior who broadcast games for the campus station at the University of Pennsylvania, gave live reports that night in Kansas City. He spent several years trying to understand the regulations involving broadcast rights.

(01-24-2013 03:28 PM)Triple-T Wrote:  i enjoy it when my team wins a tournament...any tournament.

Yeah, I'm not apologizing to anyone for seeing the '57 NIT championship game as significant on the national season and to us.

Just by virtue of the NCAA having 1/3 the number of teams then compared to today, the NIT of 1957 was a much more important tournament then than the NIT of today since the NCAA field today comprises more teams than the NCAA & NIT combined in 1957.

More significant of the 1957 selections was the beginnings of a clear plan of the NCAA to take over college BB & to render the NIT insignificant, i.e., $$. Something the NCAA has done rather well. Next was the BCS & now the power 5 conferences in FB - with withdrawl from the NCAA being the next logical step for the power 5.

Were we #12 prior to the NIT tournament or after? And did we go to the NIT because we couldn't get into the NCAA?

It sounds like the top teams made choices back then and the tournaments were competitive with each other. New York being the annual destination of choice for many teams in the 1950s doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

Seems about equivalent to winning a New Year's bowl game or thereabouts. Not the top prize, but you'd feel pretty good afterwards.

is this thread really happening? Is this real life?