Actually, the old Southern Conference was the first to award their championship to an end of season tourney winner - Coach Case at NCSU and other ACC schools were in the SC in 40s and early 50s. The ACC was not formed until '53 and became the second - ACC excellence and excitement in 70s and 80s led to other conferences doing the same thing. I don't think Coach Wooden liked it at the time - but that may have been because UCLA always won the PAC 10 regular season title. But it does all go back to the Indiana tournament tradition, through Everett Case at NC State.

Ironically, Johnny Wooden had something to do with it. When Wooden, DeJernett, & other early stars of Hoosier Hysteria were grabbing national headlines via their annual March Madness tournament (whose Regionals, Sweet Sixteens, and Final Fours the NCAA copied later on), they often competed against the powerful FrankFort Hot Dogs coached by one Everett Case. The CaseMen won four titles of their own during the Twenties and Thirties. After the War Everett Case was recruited to coach at North Carolina State. There he lobbied successfully for the ACC to adopt an Indiana-style tournament, on the basis of the excitement (& profits) such tourneys turn.

For years the ACC was the only conference that sent its "tourney winner" to the NCAAs. In 1974 the NCAA experimented with something called the CCC, whose first & only championship Bobby Knight's Hoosiers won & Knight called a "loser's tourney," respecting even the NIT-option more than the CCC. The tag of a "loser's tourney" eventually stuck to New York's NIT itself, & the Indianapolis-based NCAA bought out NY's NIT to put it out of its misery.

My question is, is how the competitive situation changes through the years as different enforcement & payment regimes pass through. Did UCLA have a Yankees type advantage in the 1960s? Is the current higher level of parity financial?

With pro leagues, it's not too tough to follow the influence of money on competitive balance. With college sports, it's only when a coach gets on the bad side of the NCAA that anything comes out. A few months ago, there was some looking at coaches that "changed the culture of a program". It occurred to me later, that that probably meant they arranged funding to support continuing recruitment.

It would be fun if somebody asks John Wall how much he was paid at Kentucky.

1) tournament size - in 1948-1949 (wooden's first year at ucla), the NCAA field was only 8 teams. When he retired after 1974-1975, the field had expanded to 32. Wooden's first title year, the field was 25, so his teams either had to beat 4 or 5 teams each year throughout the 10 titles. Not sure if Arkansas-Pine Bluff in the 1st round would have made a difference.

2) regions - back then, regionals were more aptly named. In their first title year, the West region consisted of UCLA, San Francisco, Seattle, Oregon State, Utah State and Arizona State. In 1973 (title #9), the West region was UCLA, Arizona State, Oklahoma State, Long Beach State, Weber State and San Francisco. Unlike today when you balance the bracket (for instance Syracuse this year being #1 in the west), UCLA did benefit from being on the West coast. This is not to take anything away from them, but most years they had weaker opponents to get through than the teams in the other 3 regions. They still dominated most years and would have probably done as well, but I imagine it would have been at least a little more difficult if teams were shipped like they are today.

3) tournament selection - prior to 1975, only 1 team per conference was allowed in the tournament. this rule of course got changed due to a # of incidents in the early 70s including the classic NC State-Maryland battles, NC State beating a perfect South Carolina (ACC team at the time) to take the berth, and USC being #3(?) nationally and their only 2 losses all season were to #1 UCLA. I know a number of conferences back then gave their berths to their regular season champions, but I don't know off-hand when the phenomonen of giving your berth to your tournament winner started.

Not sure if they have been done here or somewhere else on the net, but it would be interesting to see...
1) what the quality of teams in the West regions were back when UCLA was mowing the field and going to the final four in 12 of 13 years.
2) what the overall quality of the ncaa tournaments were prior to 1975 when only 1 team was allowed in per conference. I imagine that the overall quality is better due to allowing the 2nd-6th teams from the BCS conferences far outweigh the occasional fluke #7 or #8 seed that wins their conference. No idea how to measure this one off the top of my head.
3) how UCLA would have fared if the NCAA shipped teams cross country to even out the brackets like they do nowadays.

As a player at Indiana's three levels -- schoolboy, college, pro -- Wooden Top Fives along with DeJernett, Big O, McGinnis & Bird. His greatest accomplishment was starring for the boys' State tournament champion in 1927, between losing the Finals of '26 & '28. Biggest regret may've been failing to coach South Bend Central to the title in '41, when the integrated Washington Hatchets won instead.

Additionally, although I can't confirm if I read this correctly since, but a few years ago (maybe 2005) at the basketball hall of fame, I saw some statistics in a book for what I think was his college days at Purdue. His scoring numbers were consistent with what I knew them to be for those years (low double digits), but amazingly, he also averaged around 7 assists and shot slightly over 47% from the field. These numbers may not seem great, but considering his team scored 40 and allowed 25, this is astounding if it is true. (I haven't been able to find the book or any other mention of these statistics online. I also have seen only a handful of statistics involving FG% and Assists before the NBA, which makes it more questionable.) Only 1 person averaged over 2.5 assists per game in either 1946 or 1947 and only 2 shot over 35% from the field. In the least he dominated his era, like only a handful of players have. At most, he is in the discussion of being the most dominating and incredible players ever (subject to the credibility of some of these statistics).