The 1937 NAIA men's basketball tournament was held in March at Municipal Auditorium in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

. The first annual

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for higher education, colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic schola ...

(NAIA) basketball tournament featured eight teams playing in a single-elimination format. In

1938 Events January * January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...

, it would expand to its current size of 32 teams. This tournament is unique because it was started two years prior to the NCAA men's tournament and one year before the

National Invitation Tournament The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is an annual men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Since 2023, all rounds of the tournament are played at various sites across the country whi ...

, and all the teams play over a series of six days instead of several weekends. The compactness of the tournament has given it the nickname "college basketball's toughest tournament". It began when Dr.

James Naismith James Naismith (; November 6, 1861November 28, 1939) was a Scottish-Canadian-American physical educator, physician, Christian chaplain, and sports coach, best known as the inventor of the game of basketball. After moving to the United State ...

, Emil S. Liston, Frank Cramer, and local leaders formed the National College Basketball Tournament, which was staged at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The goal of the tournament was to establish a forum for small colleges and universities to determine a national basketball champion. The first championship game featured

Central Missouri State University The University of Central Missouri (UCM) is a public university in Warrensburg, Missouri, United States. In 2024, enrollment was 13,734 students from 48 states and 52 countries on its 1,561-acre campus. UCM offers 150 programs of study, inclu ...

defeating Morningside College (Iowa) 35–24. It is also the lowest scoring championship game in tournament history.

Awards and honors

Many of the records set by the 1937 tournament have been broken, and many of the awards were established much later: *Leading scorer est. 1963 *Leading rebounder est. 1963 *Chuck Taylor Most Valuable Player est. 1939 *Charles Stevenson Hustle Award est. 1958 *Coach of the Year est. 1954 *Player of the Year est. 1994NAIA Results
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Bracket

The third place game featured the losing teams from the national semifinals to determine 3rd and 4th places in the tournament. This game was played until 1988.

References

{{NAIA men's basketball tournament NAIA men's basketball championship

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 concen ...

1937 in sports in Missouri 20th century in Kansas City, Missouri College basketball tournaments in Missouri