The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-03-05
KANSAS CITY
 AND NEW YORK
 TO BE SITES
BY CARL LUNDQU1ST Limited Press Staff Correspondent


 Limited Press staff Correspondent
 New York, March 5.-(Up)-Tour- nament time drew near today for the countrys better basketball teams. That means Q baffling time for Gaas who try to figure out the annual whirligig of eliminations for threo national championships beginning next Monday.
 Each of the tournaments Is run independent of the others, each has Q logical process of getting It's on" trants and each winner has legitimate claim for national honors.
 The first to get underway will be the National Intercollegiate dt Kansas City, Monday, March l2. Normally 1t Is a 32-team affair, but the field has been reduced to i6 teams because of travel diffi- culties this year and to date ten teams from as many different staves have been entered. It is tourna- ment, generally speaking, for teams which play independently or not in the large Conferences, but 1t is not lacking in caliber because 1t doesn't always attract the ro-called "big name' teams.
 East-West Play
 The National Collegiate Athletic Association meet for which only member teams are eligible, coln- prises the major conferences and will have its western playoff at Kansas City beginning March ?3 and its eastern at New York st;.it- ing March 9. The N. c. A. A. ni- vides the country into eight ais tricts and the top eligible team from each is selected to represent 1t. witht he four western teams playnig at Kansas city and the eastern at New York.
 Teams which have qualified thus for for the western meet are Ar- kansas of the southwest, Oklahoma A. & M. of the Missouri valley anu Utah's defending N. c. A. A. cham pions from the Rocky mountains. The winner of a playoff series be- tween Washington State and oregon beginning March l5 will be the Pacific coast representative.
 Tn the eastern N. c. A. A. play offs. DePaul or Ohio States all-civ- ilian team is expected to represent the midwest since Iowa, Big Ten champion, has naval trainees, who can't leave the campus for the meet. Kentucky, winner of the southeast ern tournament or North Carolin, which won the southern meet will represent the south. Brown or Rhode Island State may represent | v9.A.w HnnSfANfiNilf q possibility. New York university and Pittsburgh are top candidates in the mid-Atlantic area.
 Aafter the eastern and western playoffs, the winners meet for the N. c. A. A. title at the Garden March 27.
 Selectivc
 The third tournment, the Na- tional Invitational, is a chubby sel- ective meet, which takes eight hand picked quality teams for the eliminations which begin at the Garden, March IT. Three teams, St. Johns, the de-. lending champion, Muhlenberg and Tennessee already have accepted in- vitational bids. Others in the field : of eligibles are New York university, a probable recipient of bids to two : meets, City College of New York Valparaiso of Indiana, Bowling Green of Ohio, West Virginia, Rens- selaer Poly, Temple and Albright. [ The winner of the 1nvitational will play the N. c. A. A. champion for a mythical national title in the ' Garden for Red CroSA benefit Marcn 29. Utah defeated St. Johns in that game year ago.