1943 NCAA Basketball Tournament


The 1943 NCAA Basketball Tournament involved 8 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 24, 1943, and ended with the championship game on March 30 in New York City. A total of 9 games were played, including a third place game in each region. Top-ranked Illinois declined to participate in the NCAA Tournament or NIT after three of its starters were drafted into the Army.
Wyoming, coached by Everett Shelton, won the national title with a 46–34 victory in the final game over Georgetown, coached by Elmer Ripley. Ken Sailors of Wyoming was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

Locations

Only two venues hosted the 1943 tournament:

Regionals

;March 24 and 25
;March 26 and 27

Championship Game

;March 30:
For the third straight year, the Municipal Auditorium was the site of the West regional games, but unlike the previous two years, it was not the site of the championship game. This honor fell for the first time to the Madison Square Garden in New York, the country's most prestigious arena at the time. The Garden also hosted the East Regional for the first time, ending a streak of three straight years of it being west of the Appalachians and four straight years of being on a college campus. This marked the first of seven times in eight years that the tournament did not feature any college arenas, the only seven times to date for this to happen. The same span saw the same venues used every year except 1949, when Hec Edmundson Pavilion in Seattle hosted the championship game.

Teams

Bracket

Regional Third Place