The FIRST time that a Final Four "sold out" any arena was in Greensboro, NC in 1974.



The teams in the final four that year were: UCLA, Kansas, Marquette, and NC State.

The NCAA Tourney may have started in 1939, but it didn't have a Final Four until 1952... and the Final Four building sizes ranged wildly from 7-times at the small 7,306 fixed-seat Kansas City Municipal Auditorium to the 52,000 seats of the Astrodome in 1971 between 1956-1974. Another thing during the first few decades was that the NIT often attracted a lot of the best teams to Madison Square Garden as it was the older bigger tournament at the beginning.

(03-22-2014 01:59 PM)IceJus10 Wrote:  The NCAA Tourney may have started in 1939, but it didn't have a Final Four until 1952... and the Final Four building sizes ranged wildly from 7-times at the small 7,306 fixed-seat Kansas City Municipal Auditorium to the 52,000 seats of the Astrodome in 1971 between 1956-1974. Another thing during the first few decades was that the NIT often attracted a lot of the best teams to Madison Square Garden as it was the older bigger tournament at the beginning.

The NCAA during the NIT glory years only took one team per conference. Leagues with a conference tournament more often than not didn't send their team with the best resume and it was very common for multiple top 20 teams to be left out of the NCAA field.