The 1958 NCAA University Division basketball tournament involved 24 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 Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic ...

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 ...

in the United States. It began on March 11, and ended with the championship game on Saturday, March 22, in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. A total of 28 games were played, including a third-place game in each region and a national third-place game. Led by head coach

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 ...

, the

Kentucky Wildcats The Kentucky Wildcats are the men's and women's intercollegiate athletic squads of the University of Kentucky (UK), a founding member of the Southeastern Conference. The Kentucky Wildcats is the student body of the University of Kentucky. 30,473 ...

won the national title with an 84–72 victory in the final game over

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 ...

, coached by John Castellani. The Chieftains led by at the half, but star forward

Elgin Baylor Elgin Gay Baylor ( ; September 16, 1934 – March 22, 2021) was an American professional basketball player, coach, and executive. He played 14 seasons as a forward in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lak ...

picked up his fourth personal foul with over sixteen minutes remaining. The Chieftains were outscored by fifteen in the second half, and Baylor was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

Locations

The city of Louisville became the sixth host site, and Freedom Hall the seventh host venue, of the Final Four. The two-year-old building was the off-campus home to the

Louisville Cardinals The Louisville Cardinals (also known as the Cards) are the NCAA athletic teams representing the University of Louisville. The Cardinals teams play in the Atlantic Coast Conference, beginning in the 2014 season. While playing in the Big East Co ...

until the opening of the KFC Yum! Center in 2010. The tournament saw two other new venues. The tournament came to Charlotte for the first time at the Charlotte Coliseum. The tournament would be played at the building a dozen more times. The tournament also came to the East Bay area for the first time, playing at the Men's Gym (soon to be renamed Harmon Gym) on the campus of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

. This would be the only time the tournament would be held on the Cal campus, as well as on the campus of

Oklahoma State University Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

, with future games in Oklahoma held in either

Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

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or Norman.

Teams

Bracket

* – Denotes overtime period

East region

Mideast region

Midwest region

West region

Final Four

National third-place game

Regional third-place games

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1958 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 ...

Sports competitions in Louisville, Kentucky NCAA University Division basketball tournament NCAA University Division basketball tournament