Well then that, along with the banners we have for NIT appearances, should be used as starter kindle at the next bonfire.
I mean, unless just getting to a tournament so small had some prestige to it. But, with it having happened in the middle of global warfare, something tells me there's an asterisk by it.
1941 was the first year the National Association of Basketball Coaches turned operations of the event over to the NCAA. The tournament was restricted to only one team per conference, the conference champion, until 1975.
1941 included conference champions of the:
Big Ten...Wisconsin was the champ.
Southern Conference, which was essentially the ACC and some other southern A10 type schools...UNC was the champ.
Pac...Washington State was the champ
Southwest... Arkansas was the champ...for the yougins', all the members are currently in power conferences (SEC, B12, or ACC)
Missouri Valley: Creighton was the Champ
EIBL, essentially the forerunner of the Ivy. Darmouth was the champ.
Mountain States, which had BYU, Utah, and current Mountain West-like members in it. Wyoming was the champ.
And then one slot at the time to an independent, which went to Pitt.
Not represented in the NCAA was the SEC and Big 6 (forerunner to the old Big 8), and the 5 team New England Conference. No teams from the SEC and Big 6 played in any postseason.
The NIT also only had 8 total teams playing in it. 7 of them were independents. Rhode Island was the only conference member, the co-champ of the New England conference, to have played in it, and they got pounded in the first round.
So the NCAA, even from the early days, was essentially the championship of champions. No consensus first team All-Americans played in the NIT, and all consensus first teamers except one played in the NCAA tournament. The Helms Athletic Foundation also awarded its retroactive national title to the NCAA champ, and its player of the year was from UNC, the team Pitt beat in their first game. Pitt lost to the eventual national champion, Wisconsin, by 6.
As prestigious as a final four is today? No. Should the banner be removed? hell no. Pitt still had to be invited to participate, and there were a hell of a lot fewer slots than today's 68 team tournament field (not to mention 32 more NIT selections). Only 16 total teams, NCAA and NIT combined, made it to any postseason at all, and all schools played in the same Division...there was no DII at the time. Keep in mind, Doc Carlson teams were considered powers in the 20s and 30s, so Pitt had a pretty big reputation at that point.
In fact, there is a banner that is missing from this most decorated Doc Carlson era. Pitt played in the
Eastern Intercollegiate Conference in the 1930s and won conference championships in 1933, 1934, 1935, and 1937. There should at least be one banner recognizing those titles, especially if you are going to keep up other conference title years that each get their own individual banners. In fact, I'd say 3 are missing: one banner should be there for EIC championships, one banner for Pitt's Naismith-inducted coach Doc Carslon, and one banner for Pitt's only player in Naismith and national player of the year, Chuck Hyatt.
