Why Do College Basketball Teams Cut Down the Nets?

North Carolina State coach Everett Case didn’t realize he was starting a trend in 1947. He just wanted a souvenir. USA Today’s Michael Gluskin wrote a terrific piece on the origins of college hoops’ net-cutting tradition in 2005. According to Gluskin, Coach Case was so delighted with the Wolfpack’s Southern Conference title win that he decided to cut down the nets as souvenirs.

Of course, being a pioneer can be tough. Since Case was the first coach to cut down the nets, arena workers didn’t have a ladder at the ready for his big moment. Instead, his players had to hoist their coach onto their shoulders as he did his snipping.

Case might not have been the true inventor of the net-cutting tradition, though. While he deservedly gets credit for being the college coach who popularized the net-cutting ritual, some sources – including Tim Peeler’s Legends of N.C. State Basketball - claim Case actually brought the tradition with him from Indiana, where he’d been a hugely successful high school coach before coming to Raleigh to coach the Wolfpack. Either way, cutting down the nets may have remained an obscure Hoosier State tradition had Case not brought the practice to the national stage.