The Big Dance: The Story of the NCAA Basketball Tournament

by Barry Wilner, Ken Rappoport

Overview

Covered by four networks, allowing every game to be televised, “March Madness” has become an American phenomenon as anticipated as the Super Bowl. This is the story of the tournament from its beginnings seventy-three years ago as just an eight-team “bracket” to today’s sixty-eight-team format. From the “Cinderella” teams like Butler and Gonzaga to perennial powerhouses such as UCLA and Kentucky, covering buzzer-beaters, upsets, and dynasties, the story of one of the most-followed sporting events in history is comprehensively told here.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781589796218
Publisher:	Taylor Trade Publishing
Publication date:	02/16/2012
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	898,755
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Barry Wilner has been a sports writer for the Associated Presssince 1975. He has covered virtually every major sporting event, including twelve Olympics, nine World Cups, twenty-six Super Bowls, the World Series, and the Stanley Cup finals, and has written thirty-nine books. He lives in Garnerville, N.Y.

Ken Rappoport is the author of more than fifty sports books for adults and young readers, including The Little League That Could for Taylor Trade Publishing. Working for the Associated Press in New York for thirty years, he has written about every major sport. His assignments included the World Series, the NBA Finals, and, as the AP’s national hockey writer, the Stanley Cup Finals and the Olympics.

Editorial Reviews

The NCAA basketball tournament has evolved into one of the most prominent annual sporting events in the United States, but its colorful, far-reaching history proves too big for veteran sports writers Wilner (Harvard Beats Yale 29-29) and Rappoport to handle. Only a few pages are devoted to the tournament's humble eight-team beginnings in 1939; instead, Wilner and Rappoport rely on dozens of smaller stories divided into chapters such as "Great Performances," "The Coaching Giants," "Classic Confrontations," and "Tourney Blunders." Highlights include North Carolina's back-to-back triple-overtime wins in the 1957 semifinal and national championship games; the evolution of UCLA's dynasty, which won 10 national titles in 12 seasons between 1964 and 1975; major upsets by North Carolina State in 1983 and Villanova two years later; and a condensed history of the women's tournament. Similar in format and style to Rappoport's The Little League That Could, this selective account shoots and misses with dull copy ("How would you describe one of college basketball's legendary coaches? A winner.") and little attribution. However, in a perceptive epilogue the duo addresses the potential expansion of the tournament field beyond 68 teams, TV's role in Selection Sunday, and eliminating campus sites in favor of domed stadiums. This book serves as a nice primer for the 2012 tournament, but is far from a definitive history of the event. Photos.
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Publishers Weekly

The Big Dance is a great chance to hear and learn from the sport's best teachers—John Wooden, Coach K, Pat Summitt, Geno Auriemma—and hear the opinions of a man who helped make the game so popular: Dickie V. And I'm on page 163.

Jim O'Connell

Wilner and Rappaport’s fan energy is the book’s driving force: they glow in the light of a game they love. Their eagerness to talk ball is contagious, and their detailing of game-by-game strategy is enlightening.

The Christian Science Monitor

Wilner and Rappaport’s fan energy is the book’s driving force: they glow in the light of a game they love. Their eagerness to talk ball is contagious, and their detailing of game-by-game strategy is enlightening.

Christian Science Monitor