College Basketball's National Championships

Rating:
Summary: THE definitive reference work for lover's of college b-ball
Review: We all knew kids like Morgan Brenner back in school: you'd say, "Hey, let's make a skateboard!" and a year later a fully-restored '56 Chevy was sitting in the driveway.

The genesis of College Basketball's National Championships must have been something like that: Maybe the original goal was a compilation of NCAA title tournaments or somesuch. Four years and a thousand pages later, however, what Brenner ended up putting together was a definitive compendium of every tournament ever conducted by the eight national athletic associations, with every non-association tournament thrown in for good measure.

This volume is a college b-ball lover's dream. You can do your own color commentary if you have it at your elbow, as every sportscaster is sure to. Its thoroughness is dazzling: Brenner even took pains to resolve confusion involving school names - changes, mergers, common usages - and provided a cross-reference in an appendix ("If you're looking for School [a], try School [b]..."). You can also test your knowledge with "Tournament Trivia:" Which school was the first women's collegiate national champion? Which tournament participant had the fewest wins in a season?

It's a pricey tome at $98.50 (Amazon.com) but look at it this way: it effectively replaces a whole shelf of lesser reference works costing many times that. If you're a true lover of the game and its history, this is the one book you want to have.

By the way, the first women's collegiate national champion was West Chester in 1969, in the invitational IAIW (page 1,027). Fewest wins in a season? Bay Ridge Christian in 1997, with zip.

Rating:
Summary: THE definitive reference work for lover's of college b-ball
Review: We all knew kids like Morgan Brenner back in school: you'd say, "Hey, let's make a skateboard!" and a year later a fully-restored '56 Chevy was sitting in the driveway.

The genesis of College Basketball's National Championships must have been something like that: Maybe the original goal was a compilation of NCAA title tournaments or somesuch. Four years and a thousand pages later, however, what Brenner ended up putting together was a definitive compendium of every tournament ever conducted by the eight national athletic associations, with every non-association tournament thrown in for good measure.

This volume is a college b-ball lover's dream. You can do your own color commentary if you have it at your elbow, as every sportscaster is sure to. Its thoroughness is dazzling: Brenner even took pains to resolve confusion involving school names - changes, mergers, common usages - and provided a cross-reference in an appendix ("If you're looking for School [a], try School [b]..."). You can also test your knowledge with "Tournament Trivia:" Which school was the first women's collegiate national champion? Which tournament participant had the fewest wins in a season?

It's a pricey tome at $98.50 (Amazon.com) but look at it this way: it effectively replaces a whole shelf of lesser reference works costing many times that. If you're a true lover of the game and its history, this is the one book you want to have.

By the way, the first women's collegiate national champion was West Chester in 1969, in the invitational IAIW (page 1,027). Fewest wins in a season? Bay Ridge Christian in 1997, with zip.