The Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh once said, “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” One would be compelled to think so if a certain renowned athletic competition finally honors its true collegiate roots.

For a Midwestern-based entity (Indianapolis), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) fails to provide area hoops enthusiasts with opportunities to personally experience a Final Four in the Second City—without realizing that college basketball originated on Lake Michigan’s proud shores.

Can anyone actually consider Chi-Town an archetypal sports town if the red carpet isn’t rolled out for prestigious events like the Summer Olympics (still pending), Super Bowl, or Final Four? Does our cold weather bother suntanned NCAA suits? Or perhaps the intoxicating political smog emitted by King Richard II’s improperly oiled Machine will threaten their profits after landing upon that smooth O’Hare tarmac?

Regardless of what the NCAA believes, it seems like cities south of the Mason-Dixon Line only host Final Four games (five of the next eight FFs will tip off in Southern metropolises), while leaving major metropolitan college strongholds like Chicago, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia literally and figuratively out in the cold.

Originally developed by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship tournament was first held in 1939 as an eight-team format. Though student-athletes of both genders annually compete in several versions of the Big Dance, the Tournament, itself, is an offshoot of the then-esteemed National Invitation Tournament (NIT). In the mid-1950s, the NCAA supplanted the NIT as the foremost single-elimination competition and gradually expanded to 65 teams (in 2001) in its never-ending quest to capture countless sports fans and gamblers’ competitive hearts.

The United Center occasionally hosts Regional games (the last being the Elite Eight in 2007), but it’s not enough to whet our college basketball appetites. Many area student-athletes from George Mikan to Derrick Rose have illuminated the collegiate basketball skyline for over 70 years, yet we can’t see them fight for the Championship in the Windy City where they rightfully belong.

College basketball has played a prominent role in the city’s sporting landscape since its 1891 genesis in a Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA. Intramural hoops began at the University of Chicago in 1893 (with only one off-campus contest against Morgan Park Academy). In early 1894, the first varsity basketball game took place, with the UC men’s team defeating Chicago YMCA Training School, 19-11.

Legendary UC Maroons head coach Amos Alonzo Stagg was hired to establish its collegiate and amateur sporting programs, including basketball and football. He implemented the idea of five-man basketball play, created the Western Conference (present-day Big Ten Conference), and co-founded the American Football Coaches Association. The numerous contributions Stagg made to various college sporting programs not only conceived the NCAA, but the NFL and NBA, as well.

Stagg would have loved showing his school spirit, yet the NCAA thinks we’d rather don Bulls horns, instead. It’s true our local college teams prematurely leave the Big Dance every year. And although Illinois has recently made bigger springtime plans, Loyola still remains the only Prairie State-based university to clip the victory nets (in 1963) in the tournament’s 70-year existence.

It would be ridiculous to think our college hoops passion has disappeared. Long before "Da Bulls" first hit the hardwood in 1966, college ball lit up our Windy City skies, with DePaul head coach Ray Meyer’s long, celebrated reign towering over the competition. Heck, the Chicago Stags and Packers/Zephyrs NBA franchises could never outshine his constantly competitive Blue Demons—or the Ramblers, either.

Perhaps NCAA President Myles Brand should visit any Northeastern Illinois sports bar to better connect with supposedly nonexistent area college sports fans? If he did, he would notice them gathering around 32-inch plasma screen televisions festooned in Fighting Illini navy blue and orange, chewing the fat, and making springtime hoops plans—solid indicators that Chi-Town is still a dedicated college sports town. Then again, there isn’t much to see inside a company limousine, right?

If Brand can silence Bobby Knight, then he can withstand Midwestern cold fronts and host Final Four games here outdoors. We now play outdoor hockey, so why not hold an outdoor Final Four at Soldier Field, since he prefers NFL-sized audiences? Doing so would not only allow the NCAA to respect the game’s Midwestern origins, but also characterize our great city as the definitive sports metropolis it’s supposed to be in the collective eyes of every global sports entity.

This is no greater dishonor than to have anyone stubbornly disregard our fascination of a great pastime every weekend. As long as Brand continues catering to “traditional” Southern strongholds, the game will never literally return to its roots, proving once more that, to quote Thomas Wolfe, “You can’t go home again.”