BleedGopher
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per Sid:
On April 8, U.S. Bank Stadium will host the fourth NCAA men’s basketball championship game to be played in Minneapolis, following the 1951 game won by Kentucky over Kansas State, the 1992 game won by Duke over Michigan and the 2001 game won by Duke over Arizona.
I am the only columnist to have covered every Final Four here, and the changes that have taken place in college basketball over that span are incredible.
The 1951 championship was played at Williams Arena, and it was the first tournament to have a 16-team field. The tournament didn’t have a traditional Final Four, because the semifinals were played at regional sites, but Williams Arena did play host to both a championship, between Kentucky and Kansas State, and a third-place game between Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) and Washington.
The Kentucky team that won was coached by Adolph Rupp, and that championship was the third of his eventual four national titles.
I knew him well enough that the Minneapolis Lakers would go down to Memorial Coliseum in Lexington and work out against the great Kentucky teams to help develop both clubs.
But at the same time that Rupp was winning that national title, a scandal was breaking about some of his current and former players — including Alex Groza, Bill Spivey, Ralph Beard and Dale Barnstable — who were being indicted for a point-shaving scandal from an NIT game that Kentucky had lost back in 1949.
http://www.startribune.com/scandal-plagued-1951-ncaa-title-game-at-williams-arena/507891061/
Go Gophers!!
On April 8, U.S. Bank Stadium will host the fourth NCAA men’s basketball championship game to be played in Minneapolis, following the 1951 game won by Kentucky over Kansas State, the 1992 game won by Duke over Michigan and the 2001 game won by Duke over Arizona.
I am the only columnist to have covered every Final Four here, and the changes that have taken place in college basketball over that span are incredible.
The 1951 championship was played at Williams Arena, and it was the first tournament to have a 16-team field. The tournament didn’t have a traditional Final Four, because the semifinals were played at regional sites, but Williams Arena did play host to both a championship, between Kentucky and Kansas State, and a third-place game between Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) and Washington.
The Kentucky team that won was coached by Adolph Rupp, and that championship was the third of his eventual four national titles.
I knew him well enough that the Minneapolis Lakers would go down to Memorial Coliseum in Lexington and work out against the great Kentucky teams to help develop both clubs.
But at the same time that Rupp was winning that national title, a scandal was breaking about some of his current and former players — including Alex Groza, Bill Spivey, Ralph Beard and Dale Barnstable — who were being indicted for a point-shaving scandal from an NIT game that Kentucky had lost back in 1949.
http://www.startribune.com/scandal-plagued-1951-ncaa-title-game-at-williams-arena/507891061/
Go Gophers!!