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>> Maybe not. It might have been the reverse of today in that the NIT was the more prestigous tournament and the NCAA was a consolation prize. The NIT got way more coverage in the paper. <<

You’re right... it was. The NIT, IIRC, was much a bigger field, and was therefore considered the greater conquest. But maybe the NCAAs focused on getting conference champs?

From wiki:

The men's tournament originally consisted of only 6 teams, which later expanded to 8 teams in 1941, 12 teams in 1949, 14 teams in 1965, 16 teams in 1968, 24 teams in 1979, 32 teams in 1980, and 40 teams from 2002 through 2006. The tournament reverted to 32 teams for 2007.
In the tournaments' early years, the NIT often drew the nation's best collegiate basketball teams for several reasons. First, there was limited national media coverage of college basketball, therefore playing in "The Big Apple" provided tremendous media exposure for the team and players. This allowed players hoping for a shot at the NBA an opportunity to play before scouts for the largely east coast dominated league. The media exposure also allowed coaches to recruit better basketball players.
Second, the NCAA was originally a tournament among conference winners. Thus, the slots were filled by automatic qualifiers from little known conferences. However, many major universities such as Marquette, Notre Dame, DePaul, and Dayton did not belong to a conference.

So I guess there were two reasons for the decline of the NIT: the eventual near ubiquity of conference play, and the NCAA's expansion to "at-large" teams.

Thinking today, which would be the better draw: what would have been the NIT teams: Xavier, Pittsburgh, Connecticut, North Carolina, Kansas, Oklahoma, Washington, Michigan St., etc...

or what would have been the NCAA teams: Temple, Louisville, Purdue, Duke, USC, Mississippi St., etc.,

Now think of the "secondary teams" in each tournament. The NIT would have Marquette, Syracuse, Tennessee, Dayton, etc.

But the NCAA would have American, Chattanooga, Stephen F. Austin, Alabama St., North Dakota St., Robert Morris, Northern Iowa, Akron, Cleveland St., etc...