Teams 16 | ||
Finals Site Municipal Auditorium
Kansas City, Missouri Champions Loyola (La.)
(1st title, 1st title game,
1st Final Four) Runner-Up Pepperdine (Calif.)
(1st title game,
1st Final Four) Semifinalists Eastern Kentucky
(1st Final Four)
Southern Illinois
(1st Final Four) Chuck Taylor MVP Fred Lewis
(Eastern Kentucky) | ||
The 1945 NAIA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament was held in March at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The 8th annual NAIA basketball tournament featured 16 teams playing in a single-elimination format, instead of the normal 32. The NAIA Semifinals featured four new teams for the first time since the inaugural year, 1937. The championship game featured Loyola University (La.) defeating Pepperdine University (Calif.) 49 to 35.
Contents
Awards and honors
Many of the records set by the 1945 tournament have been broken, and many of the awards were established much later:
1945 NAIA bracket
3rd place game
The third place game featured the losing teams from the national semifinalist to determine 3rd and 4th places in the tournament. This game was played until 1988.
References
1945 NAIA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA