Ned Irish (top picture), initially a journalist and eventually president of the New York Knicks in the NBA, began promoting intersectional college basketball doubleheaders at Madison Square Garden in the early 1930s. Eventually, these intersectional contests grew into season ending national tournaments (first the National Invitational Tournament - or NIT - then the NCAA).
College basketball lost popularity among many in the early 1950s when a wave of gambling scandals (dating to the late 1940s) hurt the sport. Several big-time programs, the most notable being Kentucky with legendary coach Adolph Rupp (bottom picture), were implicated in point-shaving. The resulting bad publicity allowed professional basketball and the newly formed NBA to gain fans.
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