The 1939–40 NCAA men's basketball season began in December 1939, progressed through the regular season and conference tournaments, and concluded with the

1940 NCAA basketball tournament The 1940 NCAA basketball tournament involved eight schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the participating champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. The second edition of the tournament began on March 20, 1940, and ...

Championship Game In sport, a championship is a Competition#Sports, competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match sy ...

on March 30, 1940, at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City,

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

. The

Indiana Hoosiers The Indiana Hoosiers are the intercollegiate sports teams and players of Indiana University Bloomington, named after the colloquial term for people from the state of Indiana. The Hoosiers participate in Division I of the National Collegiate Ath ...

won their first NCAA national championship with a 60–42 victory over the Kansas Jayhawks.

Rule changes

After a foul, teams received the option of either taking a

free throw In basketball, free throws or foul shots are unopposed attempts to score points by shooting from behind the free-throw line (informally known as the foul line or the charity stripe), a line situated at the end of the restricted area. Free throws ...

or taking the ball at mid-court.

Season headlines

* In its second year, the NCAA tournament turned a profit (of $9,500) for the first time.Anonymous, "How the NCAA Overtook Its Rival, the NIT," ''Sport History Weekly'', March 24, 2019 Accessed May 4, 2021
/ref> * In February 1943, the Helms Athletic Foundation retroactively selected USC as its national champion for the 1939–40 season. * In 1995, the

Premo-Porretta Power Poll The Premo-Porretta Power Poll is a retroactive end-of-year ranking for American college basketball teams competing in the 1895–96 through the 1947–48 seasons. The Premo-Porretta Polls are intended to serve collectively as a source of informa ...

retroactively selected

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

as its national champion for the 1939–40 season.

Conference membership changes

NOTE: Columbia left the

Metropolitan New York Conference Membership Regular season champions Men's basketball *1934 *1935 DNP *1936 *1937 *1938 *1939 Long Island *1940 DNP *1941 DNP *1942 DNP *1943 St. John's *1944 DNP *1945 DNP *1946 / *1947 *1948 *1949 / *1950 CCNY ...

while retaining membership in the

Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League The Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League was an athletic conference for men's college basketball, beginning with the 1901–02 season and ending with the 1954–55 season. Its membership ranged from four to eight members; all of these te ...

. It was a member of both from 1933 until 1939.

Regular season

Conference winners and tournaments

Statistical leaders

Post-season tournaments

NCAA tournament

Semifinals & finals

National Invitation tournament

Semifinals & finals

* Third Place – Oklahoma A&M 23, DePaul 22

Awards

Consensus All-American teams

Major player of the year awards

* Helms Player of the Year: George Glamack,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

(retroactive selection in 1944)

Other major awards

* NIT/Haggerty Award (Top player in

New York City 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 Un ...

metro area): Ben Auerbach,

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 ...

Coaching changes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1939-40 Ncaa Men's Basketball Season