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The reason for the small number of participants at the start of the March Madness Tournament was not because of a lack of schools, but because another more prestigious tournament, the NIT, was taking the elite teams. It wasn't until teams started playing in both tournaments that the NCAA Tournament started to gain recognition.
In the early days of March Madness history, only one team from each conference was allowed into the NCAA Tournament, often times leaving a debate as to who the real champions of college basketball were.
The expansion of the tournament has given smaller schools a chance to better recruit and it has given them a chance to compete for big-time money that can help to fund an entire university. The more the field expanded, the greater the upsets became, culminating in stunners like No. 14 Weber State knocking off No. 3 North Carolina in 1999 or Kansas' unreal loss in 2005 to No. 14 Bucknell.
Here's a Darwin-like look back at some of the defining events in the evolution of how the field of 64 came to be and some of the key events in March Madness history.
1939: 5,500 people watch Oregon beat Ohio State, 46-33, in Evanston Illinois for the first NCAA championship crown.
1950: The NCAA tourney gets some much-needed props as the Community College of New York beats Bradley in a big-time rematch of the NIT Finals earlier that year.
1951: The field is expanded to 16 teams.
1952: This is the first year that there was a "Final Four," where all four teams that won their regional final played back-to-back games to see who would go to the finals.
1953: Gaining more and more interest and taking teams away from the NIT, the NCAA committee believes expansion will make their event the main draw in the college basketball world and expands to 22 teams. Indiana's 69-68 win adds to the legend that the tournament is quickly becoming.
1956: The refinement process continues as the big show is divided into four Regions. Teams are still playing by location rather than national ranking. This begins to create a national interest in college basketball with teams not covered by the East Coast media having a chance at winning the tournament.
1957: The entire nation is watching to see if the great Wilt Chamberlain can take Kansas to a championship, but the team is upset by North Carolina in a triple overtime thriller that helped to coin the term "March Madness." The NIT starts to quiver as more and more top-notch teams leave to challenge Wilt "the Stilt" in the big dance.
1963: NBC pays $140,000 to televise the Madness for five years. The advertising revenue helps lift the college game to a new level. During these years, the tournament is fluctuating between 22-25 teams.
1966: The color barrier in college basketball is smashed by Texas Western, as they beat Adolph Rupp's Kentucky squad. This game more than any other spelled the death for the NIT and established the NCAA Championship as an "Event" that reached beyond the normal parameters of sports.
1973: This is the first time they moved the championship game to Monday, causing a slew of traffic and frustration for those on the freeways out west. The after dinner treat became a fixture for East Coast sports junkies, and gave the Final Four not only a weekend, but part of the week as well. TV Dinner sales soar in March.
1975: With the cash rolling in and the desire present to get teams deserving of a berth a shot to cut down the nets, the field opens up to 32. This is also the first time multiple teams from one conference are allowed to play within the brackets.
1979: After the field moves to 40, Magic Johnson leads his Michigan State Spartans over Larry Bird's Indiana State Sycamores in what still remains the most watched college basketball game of all time. The tournament, which had been growing in popularity, is now a showcase for players headed to the NBA.
1980: Field expanded to 48.
1981: Computers are first used to determine where each seed will play. It is the beginning of the end for the human element and the gateway for computers to start to dominate how the world is run.
1983: After expanding to 52 teams, the universe opens up and smiles on Jimmy Valvano. as his North Carolina State team heightens the frenzy of a basketball-crazy nation, pulling off the incredible upset of Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler in the title game.
1984: Although George Orwell's prophecy has not come true, the field expands to 53.
1985: Hoping for even more excitement, the NCAA finally arrives at the magic number of 64. With Patrick Ewing being called the greatest college center of all time, Big East rival Villanova steps up and becomes the lowest seed (8) to ever capture the title. The Cats slowed down the game and took every last second off the shot clock to win.
1991: With a full field and a nation about to be hooked on Internet and cable, CBS dolls out over a billion dollars to televise March Madness for the next seven years, setting the standard for buying rights.
2001: A "Play In" game is established so that the 64th spot must be battled for by two would-be Cinderella squads hoping to have enough to make a dress for the ball.With the onslaught of March Madness, Doc's Sports wants to school you about March Madness history and let you know how the field of 65 teams got started.
What most don't know was that the NCAA Tournament has been a refinement process that has evolved over the past 67 years. March Madness has gone from the modest beginnings of a championship game being played from an eight-team tournament in Evanston Illinois in 1939, to the nation-stopping show that gives unpaid teenagers the national stage for two weeks at the end of winter.
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