The 1949 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

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 18, 1949, and ended with the championship game on March 26 in

Seattle, Washington 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 region ...

. A total of 10 games were played, including a third place game in each region and a national third place game.

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

, coached by

Adolph Rupp Adolph Frederick Rupp (September 2, 1901 – December 10, 1977) was an American college basketball coach. He is ranked seventh in total victories by a men's NCAA Division I college coach, winning 876 games in 41 years of coaching at the Univ ...

, won the national title with a 46–36 victory in the final game over 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 St ...

. Alex Groza of Kentucky was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

Locations

The following were the sites selected to host each round of the 1949 tournament:

Regionals

;March 18 and 19 :West Regional, Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Missouri ;March 21 and 22 :East Regional, Madison Square Garden, New York, New York

Championship Game

;March 26: :

Hec Edmundson Pavilion Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion (formerly and still commonly referred to as Hec Edmundson Pavilion or simply Hec Ed) is an indoor arena in the northwest United States, on the campus of the University of Washington in ...

The city of Seattle became the fourth host city, and Hec Edmundson Pavilion the fourth host venue, to host the National Championship game. The arena, on the campus of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

, broke the six-year streak of Madison Square Garden hosting the National Championship, though for only one year, as the National Championship game would move back once more in 1950. In fact, it was the only arena other than MSG or the Municipal Auditorium to host any tournament games between 1943 and 1950. It would go on to host the first true Final Four in 1952, hosting four more tournaments afterwards, before being succeeded by the Kingdome in 1984 and

KeyArena Climate Pledge Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is located north of Downtown Seattle in the entertainment complex known as Seattle Center, the site of the 1962 World's Fair, for which it was ori ...

in 1999.

Teams

Bracket

Regional third place games

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1949 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 ...