The 1943 NCAA basketball tournament involved eight schools playing in

single-elimination A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

play to determine the national champion of men's

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Division I

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. It began on March 24, 1943, and ended with the championship game on March 30 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. A total of nine games were played, including a third place game in each region. Top-ranked

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

declined to participate in the NCAA tournament or NIT after three of its starters were drafted into the

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

, coached by

Everett Shelton Everett F. Shelton (May 12, 1898 – April 16, 1974) was an American basketball coach in the 1940s and 1950s. Shelton played quarterback for the Phillips University football team. The Cunningham, Kansas native coached 46 years at the high school ...

, won the national title with a 46–34 victory in the final game over Georgetown, coached by

Elmer Ripley Elmer H. Ripley (July 21, 1891 – April 29, 1982) was an American basketball coach. He coached college basketball at seven different schools and for several professional teams. Early life Ripley was born in Staten Island, New York on July 21, ...

Ken Sailors Kenneth Lloyd Sailors (January 14, 1921 – January 30, 2016) was an American professional basketball player active in the 1940s and early 1950s. A guard (basketball), guard, he is notable for inventing the Jump shot (basketball), jump shot as an ...

of Wyoming was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. The Cowboys were the first team in the 5-year history of the tournament to win after making a previous appearance in the tournament, having appeared in the 1941 tournament.

Locations

Only two venues hosted the 1943 tournament:

Regionals

;March 24 and 25 :East Regional,

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New York, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Uni ...

;March 26 and 27 :West Regional, Municipal Auditorium,

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Championship Game

;March 30: :

For the third straight year, the Municipal Auditorium was the site of the West regional games, but unlike the previous two years, it was not the site of the championship game. This honor fell for the first time to the Madison Square Garden in New York, the country's most prestigious arena at the time. The Garden also hosted the East Regional for the first time, ending a streak of three straight years of it being west of the Appalachians and four straight years of being on a college campus (although the arena did, at the time, host many of the local college teams as an alternate venue). This marked the first of seven times in eight years that the tournament did not feature any college arenas, the only seven times to date for this to happen. The same span saw the same venues used every year except

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022. * January 2 – Luis ...

, when

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Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

hosted the championship game.

Teams

Bracket

Regional third place

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1943 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament

Ncaa The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...