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The game of basketball was devised by James Naismith in 1891. The first recorded game involving a college basketball team took place in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania on April 8, 1893 when a team from Geneva College defeated the New Brighton YMCA . The first intercollegiate game was played on February 9, 1895 when Minnesota State School of Agriculture defeated Hamline College by a score of 9 to 3. The first intercollegiate game involving the now familiar five-player format occurred in Iowa City, Iowa on January 18, 1896 when the University of Chicago defeated the University of Iowa 15 to 12. Before that time, there were usually seven to nine players on each team.
By the turn of the 20th Century, enough colleges were fielding basketball teams that leagues began to form. The NCAA was founded in Chicago in 1906. The first NCAA Men's College Basketball Championship tournament was held before 5,500 fans in Evanston, Illinois in 1939. That year, Oregon beat Ohio State 46 to 33 in the final game to win the national championship.
The first college games to be televised took place at Madison Square Garden in 1940. Pittsburgh defeated Fordham, 57 to 37, and NYU beat Georgetown, 50 to 27. Since the advent of television, the popularity of college basketball has exploded. March Madness is consistently one of the most watched events of the year and draws over 700,000 fans.These teams play in 31 different conferences, which are classified as either major or mid-major conferences. The distinction is unofficial; indeed, the winners of all 31 conferences receive an automatic bid to play in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament alongside 34 at-large selections made by the selection committee during the selection process. However, the teams from "major" conferences are the traditional powers and continue to dominate the game to this day, thanks in part to the relative ease they have in attracting blue-chip high school recruits. The major-conference teams also have the benefit of playing a tougher schedule, more easily garnering respect. Accordingly, most of the 34 at-large selections on Selection Sunday go to major-conference teams. The following are currently considered to be the major conferences in college basketball:
It should be noted that some teams play in different conferences in different sports. For example, Temple University plays football as an independent (but is transitioning to the Mid-American Conference for that sport) and basketball in the A-10. Local rival Villanova University, on the other hand, plays A-10 football, but is a Big East member in basketball. Many of the A-10 football teams play in mid-major conferences in basketball.
The current members of the six BCS conferences and the Mountain West Conference have won every NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship since 1967, although some teams' championships predate their memberships in their current conferences.
Conference USA effectively lost its "major" status in July 2005 when 8 of its 14 basketball members left for other conferences, five to the Big East alone. Of the schools that left C-USA, three that left for the Big East (Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette) were responsible for all of the national championships won by schools that were C-USA members in 2004-05. Louisville made the Final Four in its last season in C-USA. Two other departing schools (DePaul, which joined the Big East, and Charlotte, which joined the A-10) have past Final Four appearances, though not recently (1979 for DePaul, 1977 for Charlotte). The Mountain West and Atlantic 10, which also gained members from Conference USA, are more secure in their "major" status at this time.