The Kentucky High School Athletic Association boys' and girls' state basketball championships are

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 ...

tournaments held each March featuring 16 high schools. Colloquially known as the Sweet Sixteen (the KHSAA holds a

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from othe ...

on the phrase). Since 2019, both the boys' and girls' tournaments takes place over four days at downtown Lexington's

Rupp Arena Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center is an arena located in downtown Lexington, Kentucky, United States. Since its opening in 1976, it has been the centerpiece of Central Bank Center (formerly Lexington Center), a convention and shopping facility o ...

History

The Kentucky High School Boys' Basketball State Tournament began in 1918. For fourteen years there were 18 regions that encompassed the tournament. Since 1932 there have only been 16 regions thus the term "Sweet Sixteen" was coined. Kentucky is one of only two states (Delaware is the other) that still play a state tournament without a class system that divides large and small schools into separate tournaments. The first six tournaments were held at the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...

gymnasium in Lexington. After 1923 the tournament continued in Lexington but moved to the new Alumni Gymnasium on UK's campus which had become the new venue for the university's basketball teams, where it stayed from 1924 until 1944. In 1945 the tournament moved to the

Louisville Gardens Louisville Gardens is a multi-purpose, 6,000-seat arena, in Louisville, Kentucky, that opened in 1905, as the Jefferson County Armory. It celebrated its 100th anniversary as former city mayor Jerry Abramson's official "Family-Friendly New Years ...

until 1950, when it moved back to Lexington and took up residence at Memorial Coliseum, again on the UK campus. Once construction was complete on

Freedom Hall Freedom Hall is a multi-purpose arena in Louisville, Kentucky, on the grounds of the Kentucky Exposition Center, which is owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is best known for its use as a basketball arena, previously serving as the home ...

in Louisville, the 1957 tournament was held there and returned in odd-numbered years. In 1965, Freedom Hall agreed to host the tournament for fourteen consecutive years until 1978. The opening of

in 1979 led to the tournament's return to Lexington, where it remains to the present day. However, Freedom Hall has hosted the tournament six times since then, the most recent being in 1994. Both the boys' and girls' tournaments were cancelled in 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

.KHSAA cancels 2020 spring sports season, Sweet 16 tournaments
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Notable participants

Boys' Tournament

2022 Boys' Tournament Results

:''Note: First round seeds indicate ordinal position by region, match-ups are determined by random draw.''

Boys' Basketball State Championship

Tournament results, by year

Championships, by school

KHSAA Girls' Sweet Sixteen State Champions

Schools with at least three boys' state championships

Schools with at least two girls' state championships

Notes and references

{{reflist, 30em Basketball in Kentucky High school basketball competitions in the United States