1953 NCAA basketball tournament
Edition of USA college basketball tournament
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The 1953 NCAA basketball tournament involved 22 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of NCAA college basketball. The 15th annual edition of the tournament began on March 10, 1953, and ended with the championship game on March 18, at the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. A total of 26 games were played, including a third-place game in each region and a national third-place game.
Kansas City, Missouri
2nd Final Four)
| Season | 1952–53 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teams | 22 | ||||
| Finals site | Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Missouri | ||||
| Champions | Indiana Hoosiers (2nd title, 2nd title game, 2nd Final Four) | ||||
| Runner-up | Kansas Jayhawks (3rd title game, 3rd Final Four) | ||||
| Semifinalists |
| ||||
| Winning coach | Branch McCracken (2nd title) | ||||
| MOP | B. H. Born (Kansas) | ||||
| Attendance | 127,149 | ||||
| Top scorer | Bob Houbregs (Washington) (139 points) | ||||
| |||||
Indiana, coached by Branch McCracken, won the tournament title with a 69–68 victory in the final game over Kansas, coached by Phog Allen. B. H. Born of Kansas was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. The Hoosiers became the third team, after Oklahoma A&M in 1945–46 and Kentucky in 1948–49, to win two titles and the second of three teams to win titles in their first two tournament appearances (after Oklahoma A&M); however, unlike Oklahoma A&M before them and San Francisco after, their first two tournament appearances were 13 years apart.
Locations
The following are the sites selected to host each round of the 1953 tournament:
East-1 Region
- First round (March 10)
- The Palestra, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Hosts: University of Pennsylvania, Ivy League)
- East-1 Regional (March 13 and 14)
- Reynolds Coliseum, Raleigh, North Carolina (Host: North Carolina State University)
East-2 Region
- First round (March 10)
- Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, Fort Wayne, Indiana (Host: Big Ten Conference)
- East-2 Regional (March 12 and 13)
- Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois (Hosts: Loyola University Chicago, DePaul University)
West-1 Region
- West-1 Regional (March 12 and 13)
- Ahearn Field House, Manhattan, Kansas (Host: Kansas State University)
West-2 Region
- First round (March 10)
- Hec Edmundson Pavilion, Seattle, Washington (Host: University of Washington)
- Stanford Pavilion, Palo Alto, California (Host: Stanford University)
- West-2 Regional (March 13 and 14)
- Oregon State Coliseum, Corvallis, Oregon (Host: Oregon State University)
Final Four
- March 17 and 18
- Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Missouri (Host: Missouri Valley Conference)
Teams
Bracket
East-1 Region—Raleigh
| First Round March 10 | Regional Semifinals March 13 | Regional Finals March 14 | ||||||||
| Philadelphia | LSU | 89 | ||||||||
| Lebanon Valley | 80 | Lebanon Valley | 76 | |||||||
| Fordham | 67 | LSU | 81 | |||||||
| Holy Cross | 73 | |||||||||
| Philadelphia | Wake Forest | 71 | ||||||||
| Holy Cross | 87 | Holy Cross | 79 | Third place | ||||||
| Navy | 74 | |||||||||
| Lebanon Valley | 71 | |||||||||
| Wake Forest | 91 | |||||||||
East-2 Region—Chicago
| First Round March 10 | Regional Semifinals March 13 | Regional Finals March 14 | ||||||||
| Fort Wayne, IN | Penn | 57 | ||||||||
| Notre Dame | 72 | Notre Dame | 69 | |||||||
| Eastern Kentucky | 57 | Notre Dame | 66 | |||||||
| Indiana | 79 | |||||||||
| Fort Wayne, IN | Indiana | 82 | ||||||||
| DePaul | 74 | DePaul | 80 | Third place | ||||||
| Miami (OH) | 72 | |||||||||
| Penn | 90 | |||||||||
| DePaul | 70 | |||||||||
West-1 Region—Manhattan, Kansas
| Regional Semifinals March 13 | Regional Finals March 14 | |||||
| Oklahoma A&M | 71 | |||||
| TCU | 54 | |||||
| Oklahoma A&M | 55 | |||||
| Kansas | 61 | |||||
| Kansas | 73 | |||||
| Oklahoma City | 65 | |||||
| Third place | ||||||
| TCU | 58 | |||||
| Oklahoma City | 56 | |||||
West-2 Region—Corvallis, Oregon
| First Round March 10 | Regional Semifinals March 13 | Regional Finals March 14 | ||||||||
| Seattle | Washington | 92 | ||||||||
| Seattle | 88 | Seattle | 70 | |||||||
| Idaho State | 77 | Washington | 74 | |||||||
| Santa Clara | 62 | |||||||||
| Palo Alto, CA | Wyoming | 52 | ||||||||
| Santa Clara | 81 | Santa Clara | 67 | Third place | ||||||
| Hardin–Simmons | 56 | |||||||||
| Seattle | 80 | |||||||||
| Wyoming | 64 | |||||||||
Final Four—Kansas City
| National Semifinals March 17 | National Championship March 18 | |||||
| LSU | 67 | |||||
| Indiana | 80 | |||||
| Indiana | 69 | |||||
| Kansas | 68 | |||||
| Kansas | 79 | |||||
| Washington | 53 | |||||
| National Third Place | ||||||
| LSU | 69 | |||||
| Washington | 88 | |||||
See also
Notes
- As would be expected with the expanded field, a then-record ten teams - Eastern Kentucky, Fordham, Hardin-Simmons, Idaho State, Lebanon Valley, LSU, Miami University, Notre Dame, Penn and Seattle - made their tournament debut. The record would be broken in 1955 with eleven new teams, and again in 1981 with twelve newcomers.
- Lebanon Valley College, at 425 students, would become by far the smallest school to ever field a team, as well as win a game, in the NCAA tournament. Following the 1956 split of the NCAA into University and College divisions, as well as the subsequent split into the current three division format, it is most likely that this record will never be broken. This would be LVC's only appearance in the tournament; they are also the only team from the tournament to not play in the tournament again.