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NCAA
Final Four: The Official 1999 Tournament Records
NCAA Basketball: The Official
1999 Men's Basketball Records Book
NCAA Basketball's Men's Finest
Triumph Books, 1998
By
Randy Williams and Chris
Nichols
With the NCAA Tournament in full swing, Triumph Books brings college basketball
fans a trio of interesting reference books.
If you like to impress people with statistics
about the Big Dance but don't possess encyclopedic knowledge, you will
yearn for minutiae no more after getting NCAA Final Four: The Official
1999 Tournament Records Book.
You
may not read it from cover-to-cover, but the title is an indispensable
guide for March Madness junkies, with well-indexed chapters covering
the Final Four, early rounds, the tournament, the coaches, attendance
and sites and the tournament field - the last a great feature with the
complete brackets, including scores, dates and venues, from 1939 through
1998.
This 208-page
volume is packed with individual, team and conference data from every
tournament round, including players, field goals, shooting percentages,
steals, assists, rebounds, blocked shots, steals, disqualifications, etc.
Want to find
out who’s responsible for leaving your alma mater out of the field in
a given year? You can do it with the Final Four Records Book, which reveals
the NCAA committee members and their years of service. You’ll find trivia
(Wyoming won the 1943 title but didn't play in 1944 due to World War II)
and milestones (Villanova won the first tournament game against
Brown in 1939) throughout the book.
But forget the past. The Final Four Records Book is also forward-looking,
listing Final Four locations through 2007 and displaying first round,
second round and regional sites through 2001, giving you plenty of time
to plan a trip. See you in 2005 at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis.
For college hoops fans looking for information on
the regular season, as well, NCAA Basketball: The Official 1999 Men's
Basketball Records Book is a good bet.
This book includes anything and everything you'd ever want to know about
the game of college basketball. Yes, there are stats, stats and more stats
but there's also a week-by-week look at the AP Poll since its inception
in 1948-49; lists of award winners, include All-Americas; and, of course,
"Dr. James Naismith's 13 Original Rules of Basketball."
Did you know? The first reference to the term "Final Four"
was made in a 1975 basketball guide by a writer from Cleveland...Transparent
backboards were first authorized for the 1946-47 season...Kansas, Louisville,
Cincinnati, Missouri and Oklahoma State are past members of the Missouri
Valley Conference, which is the third-oldest league behind the Big Ten
and the Ivy League.
Not just a vehicle for Division I fans, the book includes tons
of stats, facts and records from Divisions II and III. Also included
are records for all three divisions combined, so small-college fans can
compare their heroes with big-time stars.
Last but not least is NCAA Basketball's Men's
Finest, a title dedicated to the college game's great players and
coaches. Included are players who won national honors, achieved certain
statistical feats or held any national records through the 1997-98 season.
This book lists former college stars from Boston College's Danya
Abrams to Georgia Tech's Rich Yunkus and every star player in between
with key stats for the regular season and the NCAA tournament. By our
count, North Carolina has the most entries with 16 players.
Also featured are statistics and photos of the game's greatest coaches,
including won-loss records and winning percentage for each season and
career totals from each coaching stop. Not only interesting, it's also
informative. Hey, who knew Lute Olson coached at Long Beach State for
one season before heading to Iowa in 1983?
Without looking too hard, AQB did find a couple of errors in
this book. The profile of ex-Kansas star Paul Pierce is included but
his name isn't in the index under the school and Harold Olsen, who coached
at Bradley for one season, is not listed under that university.
But overall, NCAA Basketball's: Men's Finest is a great reference guide
and will be appreciated by all. Well, maybe not by one-time Southwestern
Louisiana star Andrew Toney, who won't be happy when he turns to page
126 and recalls the brutal hairstyle he once sported.
Guess you can't please everybody.
Grade: A (Comprehensive)
To
post a comment on the review, go to the Speak
Out page.
E-mail Randy or
Chris.
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