1951 NCAA Basketball Tournament


The 1951 NCAA Basketball Tournament involved 16 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 20, 1951, and ended with the championship game on March 27 at Williams Arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A total of 18 games were played, including a third place game in each region and a national third place game.
Kentucky, coached by Adolph Rupp, won the national title with a 68–58 victory over Kansas State, coached by Jack Gardner.
This NCAA tournament was the first with a 16-team field. Only the championship and third place games were held in Minneapolis, while the semifinals were held in the respective regional sites; similar to previous years. A true "Final Four" debuted the following year.
The twelve-team National Invitation Tournament was held the previous week in New York City at Madison Square Garden, with its championship on Saturday, March 17. Four teams competed in both tournaments, including NIT champion they lost in the quarterfinal round, by ten points to
The three other teams were Arizona, North Carolina State, and St. John's.

Locations

The following are the sites selected to host each round of the 1951 tournament:

First round

;March 20
;March 21 and 22

Regionals

;March 22 and 24
;March 23 and 24

Championship Game

;March 27:
The city of Minneapolis became the fifth host city, and Williams Arena the fifth host arena, of the National Championship game. It was the third college venue to do so, after Patten Gym in 1939 and Hec Edmundson Pavilion in 1949. For the ninth and twelfth straight years, Madison Square Garden and the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium hosted the East and West regionals, respectively. The two other arenas would also host the Sweet Sixteen games; while the Municipal Auditorium did so on consecutive days, Madison Square Garden shared duties for these games with a new venue, Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. It was the first games held in the state of North Carolina, and the second time a Southern school hosted games after Tulane University did in 1942. Reynolds would go on to host games a dozen times over a thirty-year stretch.

Teams

Bracket

National Third Place Game

Regional Third Place Games