1953 NCAA basketball tournament
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.
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 ; 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;East-1 Regional
East-2 Region
;First round;East-2 Regional
West-1 Region
;West-1 RegionalWest-2 Region
;First round;West-2 Regional