Southern Interscholastic Basketball Tournament

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Southern Interscholastic Basketball Tournament

1935-1940

Tuskegee Institute established the Southern Interscholastic Basketball Tournament in 1935, when it augmented its national track and field tournament for girls and boys with a basketball tournament, in which there were separate competition for boys and girls. The meet drew ten boys teams and six girls teams. In the boys field, Bluefield Genoa (WV) defeated Fairfield Interurban Hights (AL) for the title. The results of the girls competition is unknown. The following year, Madisonville Rosenwald(KY)defeated McIntosh Dorchester Academy (GA) for the boys title: and Tuskegee Institute High (AL) defeated Selma Knox Academy (AL) for the girls title.

The tournament was initially called the Southern Interscholastic Basketball Tournament (SIBT), but beginning in 1937 it grew more national in scope, when the competing National Interscholastic Basketball Tournament for Black Schools was cancelled during the years 1937 and 1938. In the 1937 tournament, Charleston Avery Institute (SC) defeated Frankfort Mayo-Underwood (KY) for the championship of the boys competition. Burlington Jordan Sellers won the girls competition. In 1938 New Orleans St. Xavier (LA) beat Charleston Garnet (WV) for the boys title, and Hastings Vocational (FL) beat the previous year's chmps, Jordan Sellers for the girls title.

By 1939, the Tuskegee tournament was drawing 25 boys teams and 14 girls teams. In contrast, the National Interscholastic, held in Fayettesville, North Carolina, attracted only 14 boys teams. The 1939 tournament was won in the boys field by Tulsa Washington (OK), which beat Savannah Cuyler Beach (GA). In the girls competition, Whitesville White (TN) defeated Brighton (AL) for the title. In 1940, the first northern school, Evansville Lincoln, from Indiana, won the title, defeating Cuyler Beach. The results of the girls competition in unknown.

Although the SIBT clearly superceded the revived National Interscholastic in 1939 as the authentic national tournament, the SIBT did not change its name to the National Invitational Interscholastic Basketball Tournament until 1941. The tournament remained at Tuskegee one more year, when travel restrictions during World War II ended the tournament. The National Interscholastic was revived as the National Invitational Interscholastic Basketball Tournament in 1945 in Nashville.

Tournament Champions--Boys

1935 Genoa (Bluefield, WV)
1936 Rosenwald (Madisonville, KY)
1937 Avery Institute (Charleston, SC)
1938 Xavier (New Orleans, LA)
1939 Booker T. Washington (Tulsa, OK)
1940 Lincoln (Evansville, IN)

Tournament Champions--Girls

1935 ?
1936 Tuskegee Institute High (AL)
1937 Burlington Jordan Sellers (NC)
1938 Hastings Vocational (FL)
1939 Whitesville White (TN)
1940 ?

See Also

External Links