Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League

History

The league was founded in the 1901–02 season by five schools: Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Princeton University, and Yale University. The league adopted the double round robin format that has since become standard for college basketball conferences, with each team hosting every other team once and in turn being hosted by all of the others once. Yale won the initial championship with a 5–3 record. The University of Pennsylvania was admitted to the league for the 1903–04 season, after securing temporary playing facilities. The championships during the first few years were evenly divided between Yale, Columbia, and Penn, with the Bulldogs winning three times, and the other two schools winning twice each. The league struggled in its first incarnation; there were many disagreements over the playing rules and eligibility, violent play was common, and on several occasions, teams failed to meet their obligation to play a complete league schedule. Harvard had particular difficulties due to limitations placed upon them by the school’s faculty, which forced the squad to drop out of the league in 1904–05 and 1907–08 (and to stop playing altogether between 1908–1909 and 1919–20). These factors led to the collapse of the league, with no competition being held in 1908–09 or 1909–10. The league was reorganized in 1910–11 under the leadership of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Ralph Morgan, with Columbia, Cornell, Penn, Princeton, and Yale participating. Dartmouth College joined the conference in 1911–12; Yale dropped out in 1912–13, but returned the following year. The conference remained stable at six teams from 1913–14 until 1932–33 (with a one-year suspension in 1918–19 for World War I). Columbia and Cornell were successful early in this period, with the Lions winning two championships, the Big Red one, and both sharing a fourth (the only time a first-place tie was not broken by a playoff game). The late teens and early ‘20s saw the rise of a great Penn team, winning three straight league championships and defeating the University of Chicago, champions of the Western Conference, in a best-of-three “national championship” series held at the end of the 1919–20 season. This string was interrupted by Princeton, who finished first in 1922 and 1923, and were themselves arguably national champions in 1925. The late 20s and early 30s were mostly divided between Columbia and Penn. Harvard finally rejoined the league in 1933–34, bringing membership to seven teams. Harvard, Princeton, and Yale all suspended their participation for varying lengths of time during World War II, reducing the league to as few as four members in the 1944–45 season; however, all three quickly resumed their places in the league within two years of the war’s end. The late 30s and early 40s saw the rise of a long-lived dynasty at Dartmouth, which won seven straight championships (still an EIBL/Ivy record) and made two trips to the finals of the new NCAA national championship tournament. By contrast, the post-war period produced a high degree of parity, with every team except Harvard winning at least once between 1945–46 and 1953–54. During these years, the movement to form the Ivy League was gathering momentum, culminating in the 1954 agreement to establish formal competition. As part of this process, Brown University joined the league for its final two seasons, and it was decided that the EIBL would be absorbed into the Ivy League beginning in 1955–56. The EIBL went out with a bang in 1954–55, with Princeton emerging as the league’s final champion from a three-way playoff with Columbia and Penn.