1937 NAIA basketball tournament

The 1937 NAIA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament was held in March at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The 1st Annual NAIA basketball tournament featured 8 teams playing in a single-elimination format .

This tournament is unique in that fact that it was start two years prior to the NCAA tournament, and all the teams play over a series of six days instead of serveral weekends giving it the nickname the "Toughest Tournament in Basketball". It began when Dr. James Naismith and local leaders formed the National College Basketball Tournament 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 next year it would expand to it current size of 32

Awards and Honors

Many of the records for the 1937 tournament have been broken, and many of the awards were established much later:

• LEADING SCORER AWARD est. 1963
• LEADING REBOUNDER AWARD 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. 1994

NAIA 1937 Bracket

	First Round March					NAIA National 3rd place/4th place Game March					NAIA National Championship March
	-	Southwestern (Kan.)	54
	-	Dakota Wesleyan (S.D.)	26
						-	Southwestern	24
						-	Central Missouri	38
	-	Luther (Iowa)	38
	-	Central Missouri State	56
											-	Central Missouri State	35
											-	Morningside (Iowa)	24
	-	Arkansas State Teachers	34
	-	St. Benedict (Kan.)	33
						-	Arkansas State Teachers	33
						-	Moringside	40
	-	Baker (Kan.)	21
	-	Morningside (Iowa)	29

The third place game featured Southwestern 46, over Arkansas State Teachers 38. This game was played until 1988.