A Bit Of History For The Younger Folk

[Phantom Warrior]

I was looking up information on former Warrior Walt Mangham and came across this article. Hard to believe that the NIT and NCAA tournaments were once on fairly equal footing in terms of prestige. By the way, Mangham may have had best hops of any MU player...ever. He won the national high school high jump championship.

Here's the link:

http://wiki.muscoop.com/doku.php/men_s_basketball/1958

[MUMac]

At one time, I believe the NIT had more prestige. Until the NCAA expanded to 32 teams, from 24, the NIT was still very relevant. The NCAA would take one team from each league. Independents had some advantages over the conferences. The ACC, I believe, was the only one to have a postseason tournament and the winner of the tournament received the NCAA invitation. Much different times back then.