Iowa Turned Down NCAA Bids in '40s

NIT was Top Dog Before Big Dance Blew Up

A general view of the center court logo before the finals of the East regional of the men's college basketball NCAA Tournament between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the St. Peters Peacocks on Mar 27, 2022, at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. (Bill Streicher/USA TODAY)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - The thought of turning down an invitation to the NCAA Basketball Tournament sounds outrageous now.

The first of Iowa’s 29 NCAA appearances came in 1954-55. But the Hawkeyes turned down an invitation in back-to-back seasons a decade earlier.

The NCAA Championship, inaugurated in 1939, played second fiddle to the NIT when Iowa passed on bids in 1944 and 1945.

The 1944 team was invited into the eight-team field after losing the final regular-season game to Northwestern, which cost them a share of the Big Ten title with Ohio State. The following season, Coach Pops Harrison’s team won the program’s first outright Big Ten title ever, but again voted against playing.

The 1943-44 team finished 14-4 and had the two leading scorers in the Big Ten in freshmen Dick Ives and Dave Danner. Freshman were eligible to compete then because of World War II.

The Hawkeyes first accepted an NCAA bid when it was offered in 1944. Back then, invitations were selected by regional designation. Iowa was offered a bid when the Rocky Mountain region decided not to invite a team.

Four teams were assigned to a regional in Kansas City, Mo.. The other four went to Madison Square Garden in New York City, where the finals were to be held as well.

Iowa’s Board in Control of Athletics met March 7 and accepted the invitation to the Western Regional in Kansas City March 23 and 24, and the team started to practice immediately.

But those practices ended March 13 after Iowa had a change of heart and decided to reject the bid “because of the loss of six players, including four regulars, due to injuries, study demands and draft calls.”

Harrison also announced that Jack Spencer and Ned Postels would serve as team captains in 1944-45 because both were 4-F in the draft and would be available the next year.

Ives was the third returning starter in 1944-45. But Harrison’s lineup became even more loaded when the arrival of sophomores Herb and Clayton Wilkinson. It was not your ordinary recruiting story.

Clayton Wilkinson, who stood 6-4, was shooting baskets at the Cedar Rapids YMCA one day. He was spotted by Dr. Jack Skien, who had been Harrison’s high school basketball coach.

“The kid said his name was Clayton Wilkinson, and he told Jack he was in Cedar Rapids on a mission for his church,” Harrison told the Cedar Rapids Gazette when reliving the story two decades later. “The Wilkinsons were Mormons, and every young man had to make one of these missions at his own time and expense, to spread the word of the church. Jack talked Clayt into coming down to see me. He happened to mention he had a brother, Herb, who was playing on Utah’s team.”

Clayton, the story goes, said he'd come to Iowa if Harrison also took Herb, a guard who wanted to be a dentist. Utah didn’t have a dental school.

The same night that Harrison spoke with Clayton in Iowa City, Herb was a hero. Utah and Dartmouth were tied, 40-40, in the NCAA title game. Utah’s Arnie Ferrin, who would go on to be named the MVP of the tournament as a freshman, had the ball and was driving for the basket. The ball popped loose, Wilkinson grabbed it and put up an off-balance one-handed shot from behind the free-throw circle that went in to win the national title, 42-40.

The next morning, when Harrison picked up the Des Moines Register sports page, he saw a picture of Herb Wilkinson being carried off the floor by his Utah teammates. According to author Buck Turnbull in his book, “Hoop Tales,”Harrison called Clayton Wilkinson and asked, “Is that your little brother?”

When Clayton responded in the affirmative, Harrison told him. “Hell, bring him along.”

Harrison’s starting lineup in 1944-45 consisted of four sophomores - Ives, Spencer and the Wilkinson brothers, along with Postels, a junior. Harrison had also recruited a red-headed guard from Muscatine named Murray Wier, who was the sixth man as a freshman and would become the program’s first consensus all-American four years later.

The team also included Dick Culbertson, a native of Iowa City and a transfer from Virginia Union who was the first African-American to play basketball at Iowa and in the Big Ten.

Bill Garrett of Indiana is recognized as the first African-American to play in the Big Ten on a regular basis. But Culbertson, who played as a backup to Clayton Wilkinson, is the first black man to actually see the floor in a game.

Iowa outscored its first six opponents that 1944-45 season, 438-221, and flirted with perfection. The only loss all season came at Illinois, 43-42. The Hawkeyes finished the season 17-1 after taking care of the Illini in the regular-season finale, 43-37, before an Iowa Fieldhouse record crowd of 14,400.

“Virtually mobbed before they could leave the floor to slap each other on the back, the Hawks finally fought their way to a steamy dressing room to be swamped by a rush of autograph hunters, and hero worshippers,” wrote Bert McGrane of the Des Moines Register.

Ives led the Hawkeyes in scoring that season at 12 points a game. Clayton Wilkinson added 11.5 an outing and Herb Wilkinson 9.6 Ives and Herb Wilkinson were both named first-team all-Americans by different publications. Herb was a first- or second-team all-American selection in each of his three seasons at Iowa.

That Big Ten title automatically qualified the Hawkeyes for the 1945 NCAA Tournament. But Harrison, hanging out in the trainer’s room after the Illinois game, hinted to reporters that his team might not compete in the event.

“Herb Wilkinson might have difficulty getting away from his studies in the dental college to make such a trip and some of the other boys have missed some classes,” Harrison said. “I’m not counting on going to New York.”

Big Ten Commissioner K.L. “Tug” Wilson was at that Illinois game, in the hopes of talking the Hawkeyes into playing. The university left the decision up to the players. And in a meeting March 5 at the Hotel Jefferson, the team voted not to play.

“The team’s vote was not announced, but it was understood to have been unanimous,” the Des Moines Register reported. “It is believed the vote was motivated by the pressure of school work and the fact that to enter the NCAA tournament would consume a period of approximately three weeks during which time the squad members would have little time for study.”