The 1945 NCAA basketball tournament was an eight-team

single-elimination tournament 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 ...

to determine the national champion of men's

National Collegiate Athletic Association 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 ...

(NCAA)

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

. It began on March 22, 1945, and ended with the championship game on March 27 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. Oklahoma A&M, coached by

Henry Iba Henry Payne Iba (; August 6, 1904 – January 15, 1993) was an American basketball coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head basketball coach at Northwest Missouri State Teacher's College, now known as Northwest Missouri S ...

, won the national title with a 49–45 victory in the final game over

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, coached by

Howard Cann Howard Goodsell Cann (October 11, 1895 – December 18, 1992) was an American sportsman best known as the long-time men's basketball coach at New York University. He was also an Olympic shot putter and a college basketball and football player. ...

Bob Kurland Robert Albert Kurland (December 23, 1924 – September 29, 2013) was a American basketball center, who played for the two-time NCAA champion Oklahoma A&M Aggies (now Oklahoma State Cowboys) basketball team. He led the U.S. basketball team to go ...

of Oklahoma A&M was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

Locations

The following are the sites selected to host each round of the 1945 tournament:

Regionals

;March 22 and 24 :East Regional,

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...

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 23 and 24 :West Regional, Municipal Auditorium,

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

Championship Game

;March 27: :

Teams

Bracket

* – Denotes overtime period

Regional third place

Notes

* This was the first appearance for Oklahoma A&M, who would win their first two NCAA tournaments. They would be the first team to win multiple tournaments, and the first team to repeat as champions. Of the nine other teams to win the championship in their first tournament appearance, only

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

was able to repeat as well. * Three teams - NYU, Ohio State and Oklahoma A&M - would return for the 1946 tournament. Arkansas and Kentucky would both return within four years; Utah would not return to the tournament until 1955, and Oregon would not return until 1960. * This was the only appearance of then-Tufts College, who are currently in Division III. Tufts is one of fourteen colleges and universities to have made the NCAA tournament and no longer be in Division I.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1945 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament

Tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

NCAA basketball tournament NCAA basketball tournament