In 1939, the baby-big brother was born. The NCAA Tournament started its existence the less attractive tournament to earn an invite into for two very big reasons.

1. They didn’t play at MSG, but random sites throughout the country, so the exposure was limited and

2. The NCAA didn’t start allowing multiple teams from the same conferences into the tournament until 1975.

The NCAA tournament had one thing going for them, they started with more teams, eight. The NIT saw that as a slight, and expanded their tournament to eight in 1941, and the pissing contest of expansion began.

1951 rolls around, and the NCAA doubles their field from eight to 16. But that only lasted a year, until the NCAA went to a varied 22-25 format from 1953-1974. The NIT answered by expanding to 14 in 1965, and then to 16 in 1968. The slow-down in expansion was the mark of the NIT’s fall from grace, they wouldn’t expand again until 1979, to 24, and by then they were already second fiddle.

The 1979 NCAA tournament was definitely not the nail in the coffin, but it was essentially the NIT’s pallbearer. the NIT was just barely reaching 24 teams while the NCAA had a deep 40 team field. Larry Bird’s Indiana St. Sycamores met Ervin “Magic” Johnson’s Michigan St. Spartans in the finals and put on a show that let everyone know they would be the household names of the NBA for the ‘80s. If the Bird and Magic showdown happened in the NIT, who knows maybe the NIT gets more financial contributions, and expands further to compete with the NCAA tournament throughout the ‘80s.

Alright lets back up, before 1979 again. During the ‘50s & ‘60s the two tournaments were similar in size and began to become equals in terms of prestige. The NCAA added automatic bids for conference champions, as well as additional at-large bids to allow teams not in a conference (Independents) in. This was huge because back in the 50s-60s a lot of good basketball programs had yet to affiliate with a conference. The NIT also suffered because the allure of MSG began to fade as sporting events began to be regularly show on television, and networks like ESPN began to spring up, making exposure not as difficult to come by.

The first real power swing came in 1970, and what follows is probably going to be remembered as the nail in the coffin that determined the NIT’s subservience over the next four plus decades. Marquette was ranked eighth in the national polls heading into post season tournament play, and received a birth into the NCAA tournament. However; head coach Al McGuire turned down the bid, citing that his team had been placed in an unfavorable bracket he decided to enter the NIT, which his team ended up winning. So, that all seems fine for the NIT, right? They managed to get one of the NCAA’s prized participants to put on a show in their tournament that should be a good thing. But everything was not fine, the NCAA wanted to make sure that never happened again. After the McGuire incident they enacted the “commitment to participate” rule, which essentially means if you’re selected to the NCAA’s you are going to the NCAA’s or sitting out the postseason altogether.
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