| Every year the NCAA Tournament delights millions of | | | | crowds, particularly in places like New York where the |
| basketball fans-and infuriates millions of soap-opera | | | | fans were very colorful and savvy, clapping and |
| viewers, whose favorite daily dramas are preempted | | | | cheering lustily for one team or another, depending on |
| by the games. | | | | the point spread. |
| The following is offered as a brief overview of college | | | | Postseason tournaments and the crowning of a |
| basketball and its signature tournament, for the non-fan | | | | national champion became really hot stuff when TV |
| of the game. | | | | entered the picture. Millions watched each spring, |
| Basketball was invented when Dr. James Naismith, a | | | | despite the fact that the same team, UCLA, won |
| gym instructor in Massachusetts, while looking for | | | | every year. And the tournament has grown year by |
| another way to punish his students besides sit-ups and | | | | year. 64 teams now participate, and proposals have |
| pushups, hit upon the idea of nailing a peach basket to | | | | been put forth to let everyone in, regardless of record. |
| the wall and making them try to throw a ball into it. | | | | The prospect is dismaying, not only to soap-opera |
| When Naismith saw that his bored charges were | | | | aficionados but to basketball purists-for what about the |
| actually enjoying the exercise he attempted to scrap | | | | element of reward for a season well-played? |
| it-too late. | | | | But in college basketball, as in all else, money talks, and |
| "Basket-ball" became wildly popular, and the Great | | | | besides, given enough hype, there'll always be an |
| Peach Famine of New England was the result, as | | | | audience for a tournament game, no matter how |
| every basket available for harvesting the crop was | | | | mediocre the participants. |
| being used in the new regional pastime. | | | | Meanwhile, Dr. Naismith would have difficulty |
| Over time Naismith became reconciled to the "sport," | | | | recognizing his child today. Basketball has been lifted |
| and made such notable changes as reducing the | | | | from the musty gloom of the YMCA into the glare of |
| number of players on a side (from 60 or 70 to five), | | | | enormous arenas. Players run like gazelles and soar |
| instituting the "dribble," and prohibiting street shoes in the | | | | above the basket like great birds, scoring with ridiculous |
| gym. | | | | ease. In Naismith's conception of the game, scoring |
| From there the game took off, becoming a staple in | | | | was supposed to be difficult, even impossible. The |
| YMCAs and schools across the country. Colleges | | | | baskets were far above the heads of the players, the |
| began to field teams and build arenas, as it was found | | | | balls were lopsided and sometimes larger than the |
| that a surprising number of people not only would tear | | | | baskets, and players were encumbered by the many |
| around in their underwear tossing a ball at a basket but | | | | layers of clothing they had to wear in Victorian times. |
| would pay to watch other people do so. | | | | But above all, Naismith would be appalled at the |
| College basketball flourished in the 1930s and '40s, and | | | | emphasis on winning at all costs. While he saw |
| a national tournament was instituted. The game was | | | | basket-ball as a gentleman's game, today's coaches |
| evolving from the plodding creature that was | | | | of young men stalk the sidelines with hate and fury in |
| Naismith's creation into the breakneck insanity it is | | | | their eyes, and every tournament game is a seething |
| today. Despite several scandals, the game grew | | | | cauldron of emotions: anger, love, exultation, despair. |
| steadily in popularity, playing to large and appreciative | | | | Sort of like a soap opera. |