BleedGopher
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per Pat:
The Gophers did have two previous appearances in the NCAA’s Round of 16, both after Big Ten championships: in 1972 with Bill Musselman and in 1982 with Jim Dutcher.
The field in 1972 was 25, made up of conference champions and smattering of independents. Repeat: If you were in a conference and didn’t win it, there was no bid to the NCAA tournament.
The lone conference to determine its official representative with a postseason tournament was the Atlantic Coast Conference. You can still get old-timers on Tobacco Road to weep for those days when that tournament was cut-throat beyond imagination since it was the only route to the NCAA field.
There were nine first-round games and seven teams with a bye into the Round of 16. The Gophers received one of those as the Big Ten champions. Florida State, an independent, defeated Eastern Kentucky (champ of the Ohio Valley) 83-81 in the first round, then whacked the Gophers 70-56 in the not-yet-Sweetened Sixteen.
That Gophers team still gets credit for an NCAA victory, since it defeated Marquette in the third-place game. Yes, the NCAA still hosted third-place games in its four regionals, hoping that the fans of the teams who had lost in the Round of 16 would stick around and help fill the arena.
In 1972, March Madness was more like the March Minor Disturbance on the national sports scene.
That was the Gophers’ first-ever appearance in the NCAA. The previous Big Ten title had come in 1937, 35 years earlier and two years before there was an NCAA tournament.
The field had expanded to 48 by the time the Gophers won the Big Ten again in 1982. Non-conference champions started being gradually allowed in the tournament in 1975, and then TV started to get more interested and so did the NCAA in receiving millions of dollars.
http://www.startribune.com/gophers-...to-their-earliest-ncaa-appearances/416027424/
Go Gophers!!
The Gophers did have two previous appearances in the NCAA’s Round of 16, both after Big Ten championships: in 1972 with Bill Musselman and in 1982 with Jim Dutcher.
The field in 1972 was 25, made up of conference champions and smattering of independents. Repeat: If you were in a conference and didn’t win it, there was no bid to the NCAA tournament.
The lone conference to determine its official representative with a postseason tournament was the Atlantic Coast Conference. You can still get old-timers on Tobacco Road to weep for those days when that tournament was cut-throat beyond imagination since it was the only route to the NCAA field.
There were nine first-round games and seven teams with a bye into the Round of 16. The Gophers received one of those as the Big Ten champions. Florida State, an independent, defeated Eastern Kentucky (champ of the Ohio Valley) 83-81 in the first round, then whacked the Gophers 70-56 in the not-yet-Sweetened Sixteen.
That Gophers team still gets credit for an NCAA victory, since it defeated Marquette in the third-place game. Yes, the NCAA still hosted third-place games in its four regionals, hoping that the fans of the teams who had lost in the Round of 16 would stick around and help fill the arena.
In 1972, March Madness was more like the March Minor Disturbance on the national sports scene.
That was the Gophers’ first-ever appearance in the NCAA. The previous Big Ten title had come in 1937, 35 years earlier and two years before there was an NCAA tournament.
The field had expanded to 48 by the time the Gophers won the Big Ten again in 1982. Non-conference champions started being gradually allowed in the tournament in 1975, and then TV started to get more interested and so did the NCAA in receiving millions of dollars.
http://www.startribune.com/gophers-...to-their-earliest-ncaa-appearances/416027424/
Go Gophers!!