By CHARLES JAY, Editor/Publisher, TotalAction.com A FEW TIDBITS ABOUT THE NCAA TOURNAMENT People don't remember it, but while CCNY (City College of New York) was the only team to have won both NCAA and NIT titles in the same season, only one other team made the finals of both in the same year. Bradley University was the team CCNY beat in the finals of both the NIT (69-61) and the NCAA (71-68), both at Madison Square Garden. It is a part of legend that one of the teams CCNY beat on the way to the NIT title - Adolph Rupp's Kentucky squad - was one of the greatest college teams ever put together. But in point of fact, Bradley was the team that went into the post-season rated #1 in the country, while Kentucky was at #3. Of course CCNY was ravaged by scandal the next season, with Bradley soon to follow..................There have been two teams who lost in the first round of the NIT, and won the NCAA in the same year - UTAH, which did it in 1944, and KENTUCKY, which turned the trick in 1949. Of course, in those days, the tournaments were scheduled in a way that teams could be invited to both in the same season....................The first team ever to go into the finals of the NCAA undefeated was the 1956 SAN FRANCISCO DONS, who had put together a record of 29-0 entering the championship game. San Francisco, led by future NBA great Bill Russell, beat Iowa in the '56 finals to win its second title in a row......................The first appearance of true "Twin Towers" in the Final Four was 1970, when the JACKSONVILLE Dolphins featured not one, but TWO seven-footers in its lineup - Artis Gilmore (7'3"), who of course later went on to star in both the ABA and NBA, and 7'0" Pembroke Burrows III, who didn't. Jacksonville lost the championship game that season to UCLA................And speaking of UCLA, the Bruins made an incredible run between 1967 and 1973 that will likely never be equaled in the college ranks. During that seven-season period, John Wooden's club won the NCAA title SIX times, and compiled an almost unfathomable record of 205-5. That's right, 205-5................With all the great coaches college basketball has seen - Dean Smith, Bob Knight, Adolph Rupp, Phog Allen, Hank Iba, Wooden and others, the man who has compiled the best NCAA tournament record of all coaches with ten or more tourney wins, as well as the best record of any coach who has won a title, is ED JUCKER, who coached the University of Cincinnati in three different NCAA tournaments, winning the title in 1961 and 1962, and going to the finals the next season (losing to Loyola of Chicago). Jucker's NCAA tournament record was a sizzling 11-1. And in none of those seasons did he have Oscar Robertson. The "Big O" graduated following the 1960 season, after leading the Bearcats to two straight appearances in the Final Four. From 1959 through '63, Cincinnati was in the Final Four five consecutive times......................The last college team to go unbeaten in TWO consecutive regular seasons was the INDIANA Hoosiers, who went 29-0 in 1975, but lost in the third round of the NCAA tournament, then turned around and ran off 27 straight regular season wins in 1976, going on to win the tourney. Over two years, Bobby Knight's overall record was 63-1 with those Hoosier teams............ The last team to go unbeaten for a season WITHOUT winning the NCAA title was NORTH CAROLINA STATE in 1973. The Wolfpack went 27-0 in the regular season, but could not compete in the NCAA tournament because they were on NCAA probation. UCLA won the championship that year with a 30-0 record. What a showdown that would have been!!

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