Fifty Years of the Final Four: Golden Moments of the NCAA Basketball Tournament

A photo album sure to appeal to cage fans, this survey of a half century of NCAA finals offers a year-by-year analysis of the tourney's climactic games and interviews with star players and coaches. The NCAA tournament began in 1939 as very much of a stepchild, because the National Invitational Tournament, with its home in New York's Madison Square Garden, was considered the premier postseason event. But after some shaky times during World War II, the Final Four was picked up by television and thereafter became a national spectacle; that story is told here by broadcaster Curt Gowdy, who was instrumental in changing basketball's emphasis. Among the figures interviewed by CBS sports analyst Packer are players John Havlicek and Bill Walton, and coaches John Wooden and Bobby Knight. (January 31)