1993 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament


The 1993 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. The 55th annual edition of the tournament began on March 18, 1993, and ended with the championship game on April 5 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. A total of 63 games were played.
[1992–93 1992–93 North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team|North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team|North Carolina], coached by Dean Smith, won the national title with a 77–71 victory in the final game over [1992–93 1992–93 Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team|Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team|Michigan], coached by Steve Fisher. Donald Williams of North Carolina was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. The most memorable play in the championship game came in the last seconds as Michigan's Chris Webber tried to call a timeout with his team down by 2 points when double-teamed by North Carolina. Michigan had already used all of its timeouts, so Webber's gaffe resulted in a technical foul. Michigan subsequently vacated its entire 1992–93 schedule, including its six NCAA Tournament games, after it emerged that Webber had received under-the-table payments from a booster.
In a game that featured two great individual battles, two-time defending champion Duke was upset in the second round by California.
This year's Final Four was the closest the tournament came to having all four top seeds advance to the semifinals until all four did advance in the 2008 tournament. [1992–93 1992–93 Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball team|Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball team|Indiana] was the only top seed not to make it out of its regional; it was defeated by the 2-seed Kansas, in the Midwest regional finals. This tournament is also notable for the uneven distribution of first-round upsets. While there were no upsets in the East, one 'minor' upset in the Midwest, and one 'medium' upset in the Southeast, the West featured three remarkable upsets amongst the top 5 seeds, with a 12, a 13, and a 15-seed advancing to the second round in that region. At the time, 15-seed Santa Clara's victory over 2-seed [1992–93 1992–93 Arizona Wildcats men's basketball team|Arizona Wildcats men's basketball team|Arizona] was only the second such upset, and following the 2024 tournament, is one of only eleven times that a 15-seed defeated a 2-seed since the tournament field expanded to 64 teams.
In this tournament, the Louisiana Superdome was the only site in which the game clock counted down in whole seconds, not tenths of seconds, in the final minute of each period.

Schedule and venues

The following are the sites that were selected to host each round of the 1993 tournament:
First and Second Rounds
Regional semifinals and finals
National semifinals and championship

Teams

There were 30 automatic bids awarded to the tournament - of these, 27 were given to the winners of their conference's tournament, while three were awarded to the team with the best regular-season record in their conference.
Two conferences, the Great Midwest Conference and Trans America Athletic Conference, did not receive automatic bids to the tournament.
Two conference champions made their first NCAA tournament appearances: Tennessee State and Wright State.

Bracket

Game summaries

National Championship

Michigan's entire 1992–93 schedule results were vacated, on November 7, 2002, as part of the settlement of the University of Michigan basketball scandal due to Chris Webber’s ineligibility. Unlike forfeiture, a vacated game does not result in the other school being credited with a win, only with Michigan removing the wins from its own record.

Announcers