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Harry Heller says:
From 1930’s through the 1950’s before the NCAA had 64 teams narrowing down to the final 4, was a secondary tournament to the NIT (National Invitation Tournament) for college supremecy. Imagine the top teams having to go through two successive playoffs to prove their superiority.
Only one time did one college team win both tournaments once beating Coach Rupp’s famous Kentucky Team (89-50) in the NCAA and the then powerhouse Bradley in the both finals. That team was a public school, CCNY, with a tuition of $10 a semester, often known as the “Proletarian Harvard.”
In the year they one both tournaments (1950) there was an irony. The following year many of their star players were arrested for shaving points in the playoff games. Many of them were kids whose families were poor and bookies were offering them $100 to miss a shot to keep their margin of victory lower that the point spread. Since the NIT is now a secondary playoff, this is one record that will never be broken.
I mention this because CCNY was the college I attended. It also produced such graduates as Jonas Salk, Bernard Baruch, Andrew Grove, Colin Powell (Aside: Powell came from CCNY ROTC not West Point), and 25 Nobel Prize winners.