The 1979–80 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 17, 1979, progressed through the regular season and conference tournaments, and concluded with the 1980 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament championship game on March 24, 1980, at the Market Square Arena in

Indianapolis Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

. 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 ...

won their first NCAA national championship with a 59–54 victory over the

UCLA Bruins The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Big Ten Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF ...

Rule changes

* Officials were ordered to more strictly enforce foul rules already on the books, including bench decorum, hand-checking and charging fouls. * Any mistaken attempt to call a time-out after a team runs out of time-outs results in a

technical foul In basketball, a technical foul (colloquially known as a "T" or a "tech") is any infraction of the rules penalized as a foul which does not involve physical contact during the course of play between opposing players on the court, or is a foul by a ...

and two free throws for the opposing team. The rule would figure prominently in the outcome of the

1993 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The 1993 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 18, 1993, and ended with the champi ...

Season headlines

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

launched on September 7, 1979, as the first all-sports television network and began televising

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

in November.Hartzell, Larry, "The 1978-79 Season," Hardwood History, March 22, 2011 Accessed April 6, 2021
/ref> It took advantage of college basketball's rapidly growing popularity to begin a highly profitable relationship with the NCAA which greatly expanded television coverage of college basketball in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. * The basketball-centered original Big East Conference began play. Working closely with ESPN, it rapidly developed a reputation as a powerhouse of college basketball and a dominating force in the sport. * The ECAC North Conference began play, with 10 original members. It was renamed the North Atlantic Conference in 1988 and the

America East Conference The America East Conference (AmEast) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I whose members are located in the Northeastern United States. The conference is headquartered in Boston, Massachu ...

in 1996. * The ECAC South Conference was founded, consisting of schools that participated in the Eastern College Athletic Conference's Division I ECAC South tournaments for independents. The ECAC South did not play as a conference until the 1981–82 season; in the meantime, its members continued compete as independents during the regular season and seek a bid to the NCAA tournament via the ECAC's regional tournament. The conference was renamed the Colonial Athletic Association in 1985 and the

Coastal Athletic Association The Coastal Athletic Association (CAA), formerly the ECAC South Conference and the Colonial Athletic Association, is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA' ...

in 2023. * The Midwestern City Conference began play, with six original members. It was renamed the Midwestern Collegiate Conference in 1985 and the

Horizon League The Horizon League is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I. Headquartered in Indianapolis, the league's eleven member schools are located in ...

in 2001. * 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 ...

expanded from 24 to 32 teams. * The NCAA tournament expanded from 40 to 48 teams. For the first time, more than two teams from each conference could be selected for the tournament. The NCAA also instituted the " round-robin rule," requiring a conference to play either a single-round-robin regular-season format and a conference tournament or a double-round-robin regular-season format to be eligible for an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The expanded access of conference members to tournament bids combined with the "round-robin rule" made it difficult for Division I independents — most of which were located in the

Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States (also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. Located on the East Coast of the United States, ...

— to get a tournament bid, greatly accelerating the decline in the number of independents, a decline which had begun in the 1974–75 season when the NCAA allowed more than one team per conference into the tournament for the first time. The Big East Conference formed as a result of the new tournament access requirements, and additional conferences would form by 1981. * ESPN televised 23 games of the 1980 NCAA tournament, becoming the first television network to broadcast the early rounds of an NCAA Tournament. * For the first time, none of the No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament advanced to the

Final Four In sports, the final four is the last four teams remaining in a playoffs, playoff tournament. Usually the final four compete in the two games of a single-elimination tournament's semi-final (penultimate) round. Of these teams, the two who win in ...

. * Louisville's "doctors of dunk" brought Denny Crum his first NCAA title with a 59–54 win over surprise finalist

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

and coach Larry Brown. Wooden Award winner Darrell Griffith was named Final Four Most Outstanding Player. * The first year of the Ralph Sampson era ended with a Virginia Cavaliers

championship – a 58–55 win over

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. Sampson, a freshman center, was named the tournament's

Most Valuable Player In team sports, a most valuable player (MVP) award is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particular competition, or ...

Season outlook

Pre-season polls

The top 20 from the AP Poll and

UPI United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ce ...

Coaches Poll during the pre-season.

Conference membership changes

Regular season

Conferences

Conference winners and tournaments

Note: From

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 6 – A funeral service is held in West Germany for Nazi Grand Admiral ...

, the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC), a loosely organized sports federation of colleges and universities in the

, organized Division I ECAC regional tournaments for those of its members that were independents in basketball. Each 1980 tournament winner received an automatic bid to the 1980 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament in the same way that the tournament champions of conventional

athletic conference An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams which play competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller Division (sport), divisions, with the best teams competing at successively ...

s did. The ECAC North was a separate, conventional conference.Varsity Pride: ECAC Men's Basketball Tournaments
This was also the inaugural season of the riginal Big East Conference

Conference standings

Division I independents

A total of 43 college teams played as Division I independents. Among them, DePaul (26–2) had both the best

winning percentage In sports, a winning percentage or Copeland score is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the to ...

(.929) and the most wins.

Informal championships

Saint Joseph's finished with a 4–0 record in head-to-head competition among the Philadelphia Big 5.

Statistical leaders

Post-season tournaments

NCAA tournament

Final Four

Played at Market Square Arena in

Indianapolis, Indiana Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

National Invitation tournament

NIT semifinals and finals

Played at

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as the Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh and Eighth Avenue (Manhattan), Eig ...

in New York City

Awards

Consensus All-American teams

Major player of the year awards

* Wooden Award: Darrell Griffith,

Louisville Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...

* Naismith Award:

Mark Aguirre Mark Anthony Aguirre ( ; born December 10, 1959) is a Mexican-American former professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Aguirre was chosen as the List of first overall NBA draft picks, first overall pick of th ...

, DePaul * Helms Player of the Year: Darrell Griffith,

* Associated Press Player of the Year:

, DePaul * UPI Player of the Year:

, DePaul * NABC Player of the Year: Michael Brooks, La Salle * Oscar Robertson Trophy ( USBWA):

, DePaul * Adolph Rupp Trophy:

, DePaul * ''Sporting News'' Player of the Year: Darrell Griffith,

Major coach of the year awards

* Associated Press Coach of the Year: Ray Meyer, DePaul * Henry Iba Award ( USBWA): Ray Meyer, DePaul * NABC Coach of the Year:

Lute Olson Robert Luther "Lute" Olson (September 22, 1934 – August 27, 2020) was an American basketball coach, who was inducted into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. He was the head co ...

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

* UPI Coach of the Year: Ray Meyer, DePaul * ''Sporting News'' Coach of the Year:

Other major awards

* Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award (Best player under 6'0): Jim Sweeney,

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

* Robert V. Geasey Trophy (Top player in Philadelphia Big 5): Michael Brooks, La Salle * NIT/Haggerty Award (Top player in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

metro area): Jeff Ruland, Iona

Coaching changes

A number of teams changed coaches during the season and after the season ended. 980–81 Street and Smith College Basketball Preview/ref>

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1979-80 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Season

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...