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→Why Did Basketball Thrive?
Similar to American football, colleges became key places for spreading basketball. With long winter months in many parts of the United States, people increasingly sought recreation during this time. Colleges developed indoor gymnasiums that soon became taken over with basketball courts, spreading the popularity of the game. This soon led to the organization of college basketball teams. New rules, including dribbling and concept of fouling out of games, developed. By the end of the 1910s, most of the rules that are with us today had developed. However, what did not develop were professional teams, as the early professional teams had to fold.
Similar to baseball, however, it was war and the rapidly changing economy that developed that helped to shape how basketball spread. In the 1910s and going into World War I, the spread of soldiers to different parts of the country and world brought basketball to new places. In fact, the first official international games occurred as a result of World War I, as the allies created teams that competed in the so-called Inter-Allied Games. Domestically, basketball continued to spread in colleges in the 1920s and 1930s, even as the professional leagues had not developed. By 1938 and 1939, the development of the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament developed, which are still present.
==The Modern Era==
