March 27, 1939: The 1st NCAA Basketball Tournament Final

March 27, 1939: The National Collegiate Athletic Association holds the Final of its 1st men's basketball tournament, at the original Patten Gymnasium on the campus of Northwestern University, in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois.

Only 8 teams were invited to the 1st NCAA Tournament, 2 independents and 6 Conference Champions. The East Regional was played at The Palestra on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Villanova, an independent from just outside Philadelphia, beat the other independent, now in the Ivy League, Brown University of Providence, Rhode Island, 42-30. Big Ten Champion Ohio State beat Southern Conference Champion Wake Forest, 64-52. And Ohio State beat Villanova, 53-36, to advance to the Final.

The West Regional was played at the California Coliseum in San Francisco. Oregon, Champions of the Pacific Coast Conference, beat Texas, Champions of the Southwest Conference, 56-41. Oklahoma, Champions of the Big Six (forerunner of the Big Eight and Big Twelve), beat Utah State, Champions of the Mountain States Conference, 50-39. And Oregon beat Oklahoma, 55-37.

Oregon's teams were known as the Webfoots, and, originally, it had nothing to do with ducks. The name originally applied to a group of fishermen from the coast of Massachusetts who had been heroes during the War of the American Revolution. Their descendants had settled in Oregon's Willamette Valley in the 19th Century, and the name stayed with them. Having used the name since the dawn of their athletic program in the 1890s, the University of Oregon made it official in 1926. Eventually, "Webfoots" became associated with ducks, but the switch to "Ducks" was not made official until 1978, and "Webfoots" is still sometimes used, out of sentiment.

Coached by Howard Hobson, the '39 Webfoots were known as the "Tall Firs," comparing them to trees that grew in the State. They did usually have a height advantage: Center Urgel "Slim" Wintermute was 6-foot-8, and forwards Lauren "Laddie" Gale and John Dick were 6-foot-4. Wintermute was from Longview, Washington. Also from Washington State were guards Ford Mullen from Olympia and Matt Pavalunas from Raymond. The other 8 players were from Oregon.

Patten Gym seated about 9,000 people, and contemporary reports suggest that it was only half-full. (History would repeat itself with the 1st Super Bowl: That game only saw about 2/3rds of its available seats bought.) But one of the people in attendance was Dr. James Naismith, who invented basketball 48 years earlier, and later served as head coach at the University of Kansas, and would die later in the year, at age 78.

Guard Robert Anet, the Oregon Captain, scored the 1st basket, after rebounding a missed shot. Oregon scored the 1st 6 points of the game, before Ohio State closed to within 12-11, but Oregon regained the momentum to lead 21-16 at the half.

Early in the 2nd half, Ohio State closed to within 21-20. But Oregon jumped out to a 40-29 lead, and, with no shot clock, started stalling, keeping the ball away from Ohio State. At one point, Anet chased a loose ball toward the scorer's table, where the trophy was being kept. He knocked the trophy off the table, breaking the little brass basketball player off the top of it. When the game ended, 46-33 in Oregon's favor, Anet, as Captain, was handed the two pieces of the trophy.

Howard Hobson was among the honorees in Kansas City in 1988, when the NCAA celebrated the 50th Final Four. He lived until 1991. Ford Mullen was the last survivor of the 1939 Oregon team, living until 2013. We think: It's possible, but highly unlikely, that one other lived longer. In 1977, Slim Wintermute, by then an executive with Boeing, took a friend aboard his yacht on Lake Union in Seattle. When the yacht didn't return, a search party found it, and found the friend, asleep in his bunk on board, but not Wintermute. The friend said Wintermute was alive and well when he went to sleep. Wintermute's remains have never been found. He was already 60 years old, so, even if he did survive, he is unlikely to still be alive.

At the time, no one knew that the NCAA Tournament would grow into a 68-team "March Madness," culminating in a "Final Four," that would obsess a big chunk of the country. Still, it is a little jarring to know that the site of the 1st Final Four was soon gone: Patten Gym, at 2145 Sheridan Road, was torn down in 1940, and Northwestern's Technological Institute was built on the site.

The current Patten Gym opened immediately thereafter, 3 blocks to the north, at Sheridan Road and Lincoln Street. It was the home of Northwestern basketball until 1952, when Welsh-Ryan Arena opened a mile to the northwest, at 2705 Ashland Avenue, in the north end zone of Ryan Field (formerly Dyche Stadium).

In spite of this initial success, Oregon wouldn't reach the Final Four again until 2017. In contrast, Ohio State have made the Final Four 10 more times, most recently in 2012, including the 1960 National Championship.

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March 27, 1939 was a Monday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And this was an off-day in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. So there were no other scores on this historic day.