1939 NCAA basketball tournament
| Teams | 8 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finals site | Patten Gymnasium Evanston, Illinois | ||||
| Champions | Oregon Ducks (1st title, 1st title game, 1st Final Four) | ||||
| Runner-up | Ohio State Buckeyes (1st title game, 1st Final Four) | ||||
| Semifinalists |
| ||||
| Winning coach | Howard Hobson (1st title) | ||||
| MOP | Jimmy Hull, (Ohio State) | ||||
| Attendance | 15,025 | ||||
| Top scorer | Jimmy Hull, (Ohio State) (58 points) | ||||
| |||||
The 1939 NCAA Basketball Tournament involved 8 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. It was the first NCAA basketball national championship tournament, although it was operated by the NABC at the time.
The tournament began on March 17 and ended with the championship game on March 27 on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois.[1][2][3][4] A total of 8 games were played, including a single third place game in the West region. The East region did not hold a third place game until 1941, and there was no national third place game until 1947.
Oregon, coached by Howard Hobson, won the national title with a 46–33 victory in the final game over Ohio State, coached by Harold Olsen. Jimmy Hull of Ohio State was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
Despite their success in this first tournament, Oregon would not make another Final Four until 2017.
Locations
The following are the sites selected to host each round of the 1939 tournament:
Regionals
- March 17 and 18
- East Regional, The Palestra, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- March 20 and 21
- West Regional, California Coliseum, San Francisco, California
Championship Game
- March 27
- Patten Gymnasium, Evanston, Illinois
The 1939 Championship Game was held on the campus of Northwestern University in the Chicago suburb of Evanston. (Ironically, it took until 2017 for the host team to make the tournament.) It would be the first of two times the university would host the Final Four on its campus; the Final Four would return in 1956 to McGaw Memorial Hall, which replaced the second Patten Gymnasium, which in turn replaced this one in 1940. The regionals were held on the east and west coasts. The East was hosted by the University of Pennsylvania at the Palestra, which would go on to host 19 times. The West was hosted at the California Coliseum on the grounds of the Golden Gate International Exposition, then going on on Treasure Island in San Francisco. Within two years, both Patten Gym and the California Coliseum would be demolished, the former for academic expansion, the latter for the creation of the Naval Station Treasure Island on the island. Only the Palestra remains, still the home of the Penn Quakers. The tournament would not return to any of the host cities for several years - Chicago in 1952, Philadelphia in 1953 and the San Francisco suburb of Daly City in 1955; to date the tournament has not held games within the city limits of San Francisco again, a streak which will finally end in 2022 when the Chase Center is used for the first time.
Teams
| East Regional - Philadelphia | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| School | Coach | Conference | Record |
| Brown | Eck Allen | Independent | 16–3 |
| Ohio State | Harold Olsen | Big Ten | 14–6 |
| Villanova | Alex Severance | Independent | 19–4 |
| Wake Forest | Murray Greason | Southern | 18–5 |
| West Regional - San Francisco | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| School | Coach | Conference | Record |
| Oklahoma | Bruce Drake | Big Six | 11–8 |
| Oregon | Howard Hobson | Pacific Coast | 26–5 |
| Texas | Jack Gray | Southwest | 19–4 |
| Utah State | Dick Romney | Mountain States | 16–6 |
Bracket
| Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | ||||||||||||
| Villanova | 42 | |||||||||||||
| Brown | 30 | |||||||||||||
| Villanova | 36 | |||||||||||||
| Ohio State | 53 | |||||||||||||
| Ohio State | 64 | |||||||||||||
| Wake Forest | 52 | |||||||||||||
| Ohio State | 33 | |||||||||||||
| Oregon | 46 | |||||||||||||
| Oregon | 56 | |||||||||||||
| Texas | 41 | |||||||||||||
| Oregon | 55 | |||||||||||||
| Oklahoma | 37 | |||||||||||||
| Utah State | 39 | |||||||||||||
| Oklahoma | 50 | |||||||||||||
Regional Third Place
| West Regional Third Place | ||||
| Texas | 49 | |||
| Utah State
| 51 | |||
See also
References
- ^ "Giant Oregon five defeats Ohio for U.S. title, 46–33". Milwaukee Sentinel. Associated Press. March 28, 1939. p. 12.
- ^ Kuechle, Oliver (March 28, 1939). "Oregon beats Ohio State easily for national title". Milwaukee Journal. p. 12, part 2.
- ^ "Oregon tops Bucks, 46–33". Toledo Blade. Ohio. United Press. March 28, 1939. p. 11.
- ^ Strite, Dick (March 28, 1939). "Mighty Oregons scramble Ohio State to take hoop title of all America". Eugene Register-Guard. Oregon. p. 1.
- ^ "1939 NCAA Basketball Tournament". College Basketball Reference. Retrieved 3 April 2018.