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 edition of the tournament began on March 10, 1953, and ended with the championship game on March 18 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 (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)