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The Road to Madness: How the 1973-1974 Season Transformed College Basketball

Online ISBN:
9781469630250
Print ISBN:
9781469630236
Publisher:
University of North Carolina Press
Book

The Road to Madness: How the 1973-1974 Season Transformed College Basketball

Published:
1 November 2016
Online ISBN:
9781469630250
Print ISBN:
9781469630236
Publisher:
University of North Carolina Press

Abstract

The NCAA basketball tournament is one of the iconic events in American sports. Now known for its size (sixty-eight teams) and myriad upsets, before the tournament expanded in 1974, it consisted of twenty-five teams (one per college conference) and had been dominated by one team, the UCLA Bruins, for over a decade. By the time the 1973-74 season started, coach John Wooden and UCLA had become symbols of success and stability during a time of cultural, political, and economic turmoil in the United States. But North Carolina State’s defeat of UCLA in the 1974 tournament--and subsequent capture of the title--marked the end of a basketball dynasty, and gave birth to the cultural touchstone now known as March Madness.In WHEN MARCH BECAME MADNESS, J. Samuel Walker and Randy Roberts offer the first in-depth, historical account of the pivotal 1973-74 college basketball season and the controversial decisions that led to the expansion of the collegiate tournament. Blending oral history and extensive research in primary sources, Walker and Roberts provide a richly detailed chronicle of the players, coaches, universities, and public figures instrumental in creating one of the nation’s major sporting events.

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