Olympic Trials
Coach Wally Marks’ 1935–36 Sycamores from Indiana State University gained national attention when they participated in the first national post-season collegiate basketball tournament. The winning team would earn the right to name five players to represent the United States in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the first Games to feature the American sport of basketball. By earning the bid, the Sycamores joined a select group of college teams hand-picked by the Amateur Athletic Union, the U.S. governing organization.
The Olympic team members were selected from the best AAU teams and winners of the national collegiate tournament conducted in eight regional districts. The Sycamores earned a bid and advanced to the district finals and were pitted against Coach Ray Meyer’s DePaul Blue Demons, at Chicago Stadium, DePaul’s home court. Despite vaulting to a 10–0 lead, maintaining a 16–10 halftime advantage and outscoring the hosts from the field, Marks’ cagers lost on a long shot in the waning moments of the game, 29–28.
Read more about this topic: Indiana State Sycamores Men's Basketball
Famous quotes containing the words olympic and/or trials:
“Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.”
—Joseph Heller (b. 1923)
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—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)