Atlanta to host the 2013 NCAA Division I Men’s Final Four and Divisions II and III men’s basketball championship games
By Tim Tucker
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The NCAA is adding more madness to next year’s Final Four in Atlanta.
The Divisions II and III men’s basketball championship games will be played here April 7, the NCAA announced Thursday. That’s the off day between the Division I semifinals and championship game, the annual culmination of March Madness that already was set for Atlanta.
The NCAA said the unprecedented decision to crown the champions of all three of its divisions in the same city on the same long weekend is part of the organization’s grand plan for celebrating the 75th anniversary of college basketball’s national tournament.
“This is a first in the history of NCAA basketball, and our membership is energized to play all three men’s championships games in the same city during the same weekend as a unique and special way to celebrate 75 years of March Madness,” Mark Lewis, NCAA executive vice president of championships and alliances, said in a statement.
The announcement came on the opening day of the Division I basketball committee’s spring meeting in Indianapolis.
The Division I Final Four will be played in the Georgia Dome on April 6 and the championship game on April 8. The title games in the lower divisions will be played on the Sunday of Final Four weekend; the tentative site for the Divisions II and III games is Philips Arena, the NCAA said.
Starting times will be set later. The Division II game will be televised on CBS and the Division III game on CBS Sports Network.
“We could not be happier to host all three NCAA men’s basketball championships as part of the 75th celebration of March Madness,” John Yates, chair of Atlanta’s Final Four host committee, said in a statement.
Last season, the Division II quarterfinals, semifinals and final were played in Highland Heights, Ky., and the Division III semis and final were played in Salem, Va.
Only the championship games in those divisions will be played in Atlanta, NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson said, and “both divisions will need to adjust the formats” of their tournaments. The Divisions II and III basketball committees will meet “to decide how to best accommodate the change in format,” Christianson said.
_________________________________________________
NCAA Men’s Final Four host cities
Year City Venue Champion
1939 Evanston, Illinois Patten Gymnasium Oregon
1940 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium Indiana
1941 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium Wisconsin
1942 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium Stanford
1943 New York City Madison Square Garden Wyoming
1944 New York City Madison Square Garden Utah
1945 New York City Madison Square Garden Oklahoma A&M
1946 New York City Madison Square Garden Oklahoma A&M
1947 New York City Madison Square Garden Holy Cross
1948 New York City Madison Square Garden Kentucky
1949 Seattle, Washington Hec Edmundson Pavilion Kentucky
1950 New York City Madison Square Garden CCNY
1951 Minneapolis, Minnesota Williams Arena Kentucky
1952 Seattle, Washington Hec Edmundson Pavilion Kansas
1953 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium Indiana
1954 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium La Salle
1955 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium San Francisco
1956 Evanston, Illinois McGaw Hall San Francisco
1957 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium North Carolina
1958 Louisville, Kentucky Freedom Hall Kentucky
1959 Louisville, Kentucky Freedom Hall California
1960 San Francisco Cow Palace Ohio State
1961 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium Cincinnati
1962 Louisville, Kentucky Freedom Hall Cincinnati
1963 Louisville, Kentucky Freedom Hall Loyola Chicago
1964 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium UCLA
1965 Portland, Oregon Memorial Colesium UCLA
1966 College Park, Maryland Cole Field House Texas Western
1967 Louisville, Kentucky Freedom Hall UCLA
1968 Los Angeles Sports Arena UCLA
1969 Louisville, Kentucky Freedom Hall UCLA
1970 College Park, Maryland Cole Field House UCLA
1971 Houston, Texas Astrodome UCLA
1972 Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena UCLA
1973 St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis Arena UCLA
1974 Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro Coliseum NC State
1975 San Diego, California Valley View Casino Center UCLA
1976 Philadelphia The Spectrum Indiana
1977 Atlanta, Georgia The Omni Marquette
1978 St. Louis, Missouri The Checkerdome Kentucky
1979 Salt Lake City Huntsman Center Michigan State
1980 Indianapolis, Indiana Market Square Arena Louisville
1981 Philadelphia The Spectrum Indiana
1982 New Orleans, Louisiana Louisiana Superdome North Carolina
1983 Albuquerque, New Mexico The Pit NC State
1984 Seattle, Washington Kingdome Georgetown
1985 Lexington, Kentucky Rupp Arena Villanova
1986 Dallas, Texas Reunion Arena Louisville
1987 New Orleans, Louisiana Louisiana Superdome Indiana
1988 Kansas City, Missouri Kemper Arena Kansas
1989 Seattle, Washington Kingdome Michigan
1990 Denver, Colorado McNichols Sports Arena UNLV
1991 Indianapolis, Indiana Hoosier Dome Duke
1992 Minneapolis, Minnesota HHH Metrodome Duke
1993 New Orleans, Louisiana Louisiana Superdome North Carolina
1994 Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte Coliseum Arkansas *
1995 Seattle, Washington Kingdome UCLA
1996 East Rutherford, New Jersey Continental Airlines Arena Kentucky *
1997 Indianapolis, Indiana RCA Dome Arizona
1998 San Antonio, Texas Alamodome Kentucky
1999 St. Petersburg, Florida Tropicana Field Connecticut
2000 Indianapolis, Indiana RCA Dome Michigan State
2001 Minneapolis, Minnesota HHH Metrodome Duke
2002 Atlanta, Georgia Georgia Dome Maryland
2003 New Orleans, Louisiana Louisiana Superdome Syracuse
2004 San Antonio, Texas Alamodome Connecticut
2005 St. Louis, Missouri Edward Jones Dome North Carolina
2006 Indianapolis, Indiana RCA Dome Florida
2007 Atlanta, Georgia Georgia Dome Florida
2008 San Antonio, Texas Alamodome Kansas
2009 Detroit, Michigan Ford Field North Carolina
2010 Indianapolis, Indiana Lucas Oil Stadium Duke
2011 Houston, Texas Reliant Stadium Connecticut
2012 New Orleans, Louisiana Mercedes-Benz Superdome Kentucky
2013 Atlanta, Georgia Georgia Dome
2014 Arlington, Texas Cowboys Stadium
2015 Indianapolis, Indiana Lucas Oil Stadium
2016 Houston, Texas Reliant Stadium
*Charlotte and East Rutherford, NJ were the last cities to host the NCAA Men’s Final Four in a basketball arena/coliseum. Since then the Final Four has only been hosted in indoor football or indoor baseball stadiums.
_____________________________________________________________________
The NCAA tournament has expanded a number of times throughout its history
1939–1950: 8 teams
1951–1952: 16 teams
1953–1974: varied between 22 and 25 teams
1975–1978: 32 teams
1979: 40 teams
1980–1982: 48 teams
1983: 52 teams (four play-in games before the tournament)
1984: 53 teams (five play-in games before the tournament)
1985–2000: 64 teams
2001–2010: 65 teams (with an opening round game to determine whether the 64th or 65th team plays in the first round)
2011–present: 68 teams (four play-in games in the first round before all remaining teams compete in the second round)
___________________________________________
“Final Four” first appeared in print in a 1975 article for the Official Collegiate Basketball Guide, whose author Ed Chay was a sportswriter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.
March Madness traces back to Illinois’ statewide high-school basketball tournament, which began in 1908. In 1939, an official with the Illinois High School Association, Henry V. Porter, penned an article called “March Madness” for the organization’s in-house magazine. “A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel,” he wrote. Three years later, he followed up with a poem, “Basketball Ides of March,” which read in part: “A sharp-shooting mite is king tonight/ The Madness of March is running.”
The phrase was confined to Illinois high-school ball until 1982, when CBS broadcaster (and ex-Chicago Daily News sportswriter) Brent Musburger used it during his network’s NCAA tournament coverage. The IHSA, meanwhile, applied to trademark “March Madness” in 1989. The NCAA and IHSA clashed in 1996, when the IHSA sued to stop GTE, an NCAA corporate partner, from distributing a CD-ROM game bearing the March Madness title. The NCAA contended that it had a common-law trademark on the phrase and was thus allowed to license it at will. The 7th Circuit Court sided with the NCAA, but its ruling was vague enough to open the door for future litigation. Rather than endure more rounds in court, the two sides agreed to form the March Madness Athletic Association, a joint holding company. The IHSA controls the name on the high-school level, while the NCAA has a perpetual license to use the phrase in connection with its (much larger) collegiate tournament.
A similar clash occurred in the late 1990s over “Sweet 16,” tourney slang for the third round. CBS commentators started using the phrase in the late 1980s, after the tournament field expanded from 53 to 64 teams. Unfortunately for the NCAA, the phrase (using both “16” and “Sixteen”) was trademarked by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association in 1988, as a handle for its annual championship tournament. Perhaps mindful of the March Madness precedent, however, the KHSAA chose to bargain with the NCAA rather than litigate. The two sides struck a deal similar to the one between the IHSA and the NCAA, splitting control along scholastic-collegiate lines. (The NCAA also owns the trademark to “Elite Eight,” though the exact origins of that phrase are unclear.)
In a 1975 article for the Official Collegiate Basketball Guide, Chay wrote that Al McGuire’s Marquette squad “was one of the final four” in the previous year’s tournament. Something about the phrase struck a chord with the NCAA’s marketing folks, and they started capitalizing it as “Final Four” in 1978. It is, of course, now trademarked. (College hockey is stuck with the nickname “Frozen Four” for its national semifinals.)
Source: Brendan Koerner at Slate.com 2004
_____________________________________________
NCAA Division II and III Men’s Basketball Championship tournament
The NCAA Division II Men’s Basketball Championship tournament, originally known as the NCAA College Division Basketball Championship, was established in 1957, immediately after the NCAA subdivided its member schools into the University Division (today’s Division I) and College Division. It became the Division II championship in 1974, when the NCAA split the College Division into the limited-scholarship Division II and the non-scholarship Division III, and added the “Men’s” designation in 1982 when the NCAA began sponsoring national championships in women’s sports.
Dilemma X 
May 11, 2012
Athletics