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ISU's only final 4 in 1944

hoosman

hoosman

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Sep 4, 2006
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1943–44 Iowa State Cyclones men's basketball team - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

A CBS announcer just said emphatically that ISU has never been to the final 4. He is incorrect, but not way off base.

In 1944, ISU played in the NIT (eight teams in tournament), not the NCAA tournament. At the time NIT was more prestigious. They were previously offered the NCAA, but declined, and then Iowa took that open bid, supposedly because they wanted to avoid playing against ISU. ISU was unranked that season. ISU won 1 game to get to the final four, then lost to the Utah Redskins, who went on be NC. ISU had a lot of roster turnover that season due to WW2.

So yes, ISU has had a final 4 team, but it is kind of sketchy - kind of like our 2 MVC conference football championships in football (1911-1912).
 
Um that is a bit creepy, our only F4 was a year before WWII, if we make the F4 this year we know what is happening, and what is happening is going to happen, so we all know what is about to happen.
 
hoosman said:
In 1944, ISU played in the NIT (eight teams in tournament), not the NCAA tournament. At the time NIT was more prestigious. They were previously offered the NCAA, but declined, and then Iowa took that open bid, supposedly because they wanted to avoid playing against ISU. ISU was unranked that season. ISU won 1 game to get to the final four, then lost to the Utah Redskins, who went on be NC. ISU had a lot of roster turnover that season due to WW2.
Click to expand...

Is this a ChatGPT summary, because...whoof.
 
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iowastatefan1929 said:
Um that is a bit creepy, our only F4 was a year before WWII, if we make the F4 this year we know what is happening, and what is happening is going to happen, so we all know what is about to happen.
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b6494d63-0046-4a6b-9c58-0130e085c8e6_screenshot.jpg
 
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Iowa St. did not play in the 1944 NIT, the final four in that tournament was Oklahoma A&M, DePaul, Kentucky, and St. John's.

Iowa St. played in the 1944 NCAA Basketball Tournament where the final four included Dartmouth, Iowa St., Ohio St., and Utah. It was the 6th time the tournament had been played. Iowa St. played in the West region which took place at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City.
 
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iowastatefan1929 said:
Um that is a bit creepy, our only F4 was a year before WWII, if we make the F4 this year we know what is happening, and what is happening is going to happen, so we all know what is about to happen.
Click to expand...
Just FYI, WWII started on Dec 7th, 1941 for the U.S. (much earlier for Europe).

This F4 would have occurred a couple months before D-Day. The war in Europe would be over within a year from that point and war with Japan would be over 4 months later.
 
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There were several bids accepted and rejected before the final complement of teams was reached. Arkansas dropped out after a vehicle accident. Utah played in the NIT, then came back and took Arkansas' spot. Iowa had a spot for awhile, but then had to turn it down, which opened the door for Missouri. Iowa State and Oklahoma both declined bids at separate times due to concerns about travel restrictions for Navy trainees (48-hour limit away from base).

The four that finally ended up in Kansas City were ISU, Pepperdine, Utah, and Missouri.

However...even if Iowa State beaten Utah in the regional final, Utah still would have gone to New York for the title game.

The vast majority of ISU's roster were Navy trainees, and ISU found out (after accepting the second time, naturally) that it wasn't granted an exception to the travel restrictions. So the options were: (a) withdrawing completely and not playing in KC; (b) leaving the trainees home and coming up with a new "civilian" roster, or (c) still playing the games in KC and someone else would advance no matter the result.

Option C was chosen in advance by the ISU AD (Veenker), the team, and the tournament committee.
 
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I look at it this way. If Nebraska an rewrite history and actually win a tournament game we can go to the Final Four.
 
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