The tournament would feature each of the four schools referred to as the Big Four or Tobacco Road: Duke University, North Carolina State College, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest College. The remaining four entrants would be various talented teams from across the nation.
In this tournament, each of the four schools—Duke University, North Carolina State College, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest College—are known as the Big Four or Tobacco Road. The other four competitors are various highly skilled teams from different regions of the country.