1969: NBC Sports becomes the first major network to broadcast the championship game, paying more than $500,000 to air the contest between UCLA and Purdue.

1970: Feisty Al McGuire, the coach at 8th-ranked Marquette, an independent school, is upset that the NCAA plans to send his Warriors to the Midwest regional in Fort Worth instead of the Mideast in Dayton.

McGuire spurns the NCAA tourney bid and accepts an offer to play in the NIT instead. Because Marquette did not belong to a conference there was no rule in place mandating that they accept the NCAA invite.

"After that Walter Byers (the longtime NCAA executive director) changed the rules," says Einhorn. "He decreed that any school offered an NCAA bid had to accept it or else be banned from postseason play. That was the beginning of the end for the NIT."

1974: Conference commissioners, upset that the NCAA still refuses to invite more than one team per conference, creates the College Commissioner's Association Tournament. It lasts two years. The '74 championship game features Indiana, two years shy of its undefeated season, and Southern Cal, whose two losses are to national champion UCLA. Hoosier coach Bob Knight is ejected from that game. Indiana wins.

1975: The NCAA tourney expands to 32 teams and begins extending at-large invitations to schools that have not won their confrerence tourney. Also this year, Ed Chay, a sportswriter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, uses the term "final four" in an article that appears in the Official Collegiate Basketball Guide.

1976: Bob Knight's Indiana Hoosiers defeat fellow Big Ten member Michigan to win the national championship. It is the first time two schools from the same conference meet in the final and the last time a team goes undefeated en route to winning the national title.

1978: The NCAA begins capitalizing "Final Four" and later trademarks the term.

1979: The six-year expansion era begins, from 32 to 40 teams in '79. The field expands to 48 in 1980, to 52 in 1983 and finally, in 1985, to 64. That this era coincides with the most memorable championship games in the tournament's history — Magic-Bird in '79, Michael Jordan's game-winner in '82, North Carolina State's incredible upset of Houston in '83, and Villanova-Georgetown in '85, and even Indiana beating Syracuse on a late shot in the same year that Hoosiers is released — is no accident.

The Michigan State-Indiana State game of '79 draws a 24.1 rating, which is the largest television audience ever for a college basketball game.

Later this year, on December 5th, ESPN broadcasts its first collegiate game (DePaul beats Wisconsin) and Dick Vitale is at the microphone.

1981: John Hinckley Jr. shoots President Reagan in Washington, just hours before the tip-off of that evening's national championship game between North Carolina and Indiana in Philadelphia. Reagan survives the assassination attempt and even quips a little W.C. Fields, "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia." The game is not canceled and the Hoosiers win.

1982: ESPN, still in its nascent stages, begins airing live coverage of opening-round games. ESPN shows six games on each of the first two days, forever altering the climate of March Madness. Brent Musberger of CBS, a Northwestern alum with Illinois roots, uses the term "March Madness" on national television.

Special feature Spotlighting NCAA's top freshmen NBCSports.com

1987: "One Shining Moment" makes it debut following Indiana's defeat of Syracuse in the championship game. The song was written eight years earlier by folk singer David Barrett, who was inspired to do so after watching Larry Bird play in the 1979 title game. It has since become, in the words of Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and countless others, "the anthem of college basketball."

1991: CBS, which initially bought the rights to the tournament in 1982 (allowing ESPN to air opening-round weekday games), begins a seven-year, $1 billion deal with the NCAA for exclusive rights to the tournament.

1992: In the East regional semifinal, Christian Laettner of Duke buries Kentucky on a last-second shot for a 104-103 overtime victory. The Blue Devils go on to win their second consecutive national title and this game goes down as one of the greatest of all time.

1999: CBS bids $6 billion for the exclusive rights to the NCAA tournament for 11 years, beginning in 2003. The deal is more than double the existing rights fees, but CBS is also given exclusive radio and digital rights to the tournament.

2001: A 65th team is added to the field, as the "play-in game," held each year in Dayton on Tuesday, is inaugurated. It's a step backward for the tourney, in that it has generated no new interest. It is a clumsy addition, like adding a satellite dish to the Taj Mahal.

Still, the tournament, like the country that spawned it, is forever chasing a manifest destiny. And while the court's bounds (94 feet in length) and the rim's height (10 feet) may be the same as they were that evening back in 1939, the dimensions of interest in March Madness continue to expand.

MORE FROM COLLEGE BASKETBALL

College basketball Section Front

Villanova more than just '85 7-footer transfers to Ohio State Love or hate him, Packer had his strengths Packer out after 27 years as CBS hoops analyst Ex-Fresno St. women's coach to be GM in CBA Son of NC State coach sentenced to 15 months UNC knows pressure is on to win it all New 3-point line won't faze proven shooters Opinion: Jennings taking big risk by playing in Europe   Sound off in our message boards College basketball Section Front   Add College basketball headlines to your news reader: