The first Canadian interuniversity basketball game was played in Kingston, Ontario in December, 1902, when McGill University visited Queen's University; McGill won 10-6.

College basketball was rocked by gambling scandals from 1948 to 1951, when dozens of players from top teams were implicated in event fixing and point shaving. Partially spurred by an association with cheating, the NIT lost Basketball Training abutment to the NCAA tournament.