Final Four Trivia

Useful information about this year's final four participants-

Michigan State University

Michigan State University was founded in 1855 as the nation's first land-grant university and served as the prototype for 69 land-grant institutions later established under the Morrill Act of 1862.

MSU's current nickname is the Spartans, which was changed from Aggies in 1925.
Thirty-seven Michigan State players went on to play in the NBA or ABA.

Butler University

Butler plays at Hinkle Fieldhouse (Butler Fieldhouse until 1966) in Indianapolis, where the championship game in the movie "Hoosiers" was played. When it was built in 1928, it was the largest basketball arena in the United States, and it retained that distinction until 1950.

Three Butler players went on to play in the NBA or ABA, the last being Billy Shepherd in 1975.

Prior to 1919, Butler's athletic teams were known as the Christians. But numerous losses in the 1919 football season caused Butler's followers to grow weary of the nickname, leading to the unleashing of the Bulldogs name.

West Virginia

West Virginia is the only state created by carving out territory from another state without that state's permission.

West Virginia University played Pitt in the first football game ever broadcast on the radio in 1921 on KDKA.

West Virginia University is well known for its rowdy fans who like to set objects ablaze after big games. Morgantown led the nation with 1,129 intentional street fires set between 1997 and 2003.

Thirteen West Virginia players went on to play in the NBA or ABA.

Duke

Duke's nickname comes from the French "les Diables Bleus" or "the Blue Devils," which was the nickname given during World War I to the Chasseurs Alpins, the French Alpine light infantry battalion.

On Sunday morning March 12, 1944, during a time of heated racial segregation, the men's basketball team from the North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University) competed against a squad from the Duke School of Medicine on the campus of NCCU in the first racially integrated college-level basketball game in the South.

Fifty-one Duke players went on to play in the NBA or ABA.