Basketball was invented in 1892.
The game of basketball was invented by James Naismith in 1891, during his tenure at the YMCA training school in Springfield, Massachusetts. The original game was played with seven to nine players per team. There was no dribbling and players were thrown out of the game after only two fouls. The sport quickly began to gain in popularity, and it was only three years before the first intercollegiate game.
The First Game
The first intercollegiate game of basketball was between Hamline College and the Minnesota School of Agriculture. Minnesota won, 9-3. On Jan. 18, 1896, the first college game was played with five players per team. This game was between the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa, with the University of Chicago winning 15-12.
College Championships
The National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (now the NAIA) organized the first men’s national college championship in 1937, according to the website Think Quest. In 1938, the National Invitation Tournament took place in New York. The NCAA's first men's national tournament was played in 1939.
Scandals
In the early years, college basketball was plagued by gambling scandals. Many players from top teams were implicated between 1948 and 1951. It was common for players to bet on their own games, then participate in point shaving and match fixing, according to the College Hoops website.
Conferences
There were enough college teams at the turn of the century that conferences began to form. In 1906, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States was formed (IAAUS). The association governed rules of eligibility for college basketball. Now the organization is known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), according to College Sports Scholarships.
Madison Square Garden
On Dec. 29, 1934, Madison Square Garden had its first college basketball games as NYU beat Notre Dame and Westminster defeated St. John's in a doubleheader. By 1938, it hosted the first National Invitational Tournament (NIT), a college basketball tournament that was held there for decades, according to the Sporting News website. Madison Square Garden became the home of the New York Knickerbockers in 1946.
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