The 1978 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 32 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 11, 1978, and ended with the championship game on March 27 in St. Louis, Missouri. A total of 32 games were played, including a national third place game.
The process of seeding the bracket was first used in this tournament. 16 conference winners with automatic bids were seeded 1 through 4 in each region. At-large teams were seeded 1 through 4 in each region separately. There were in fact only 11 true at-large teams in the field, as the remaining 5 teams were conference winners with automatic bids who were seeded as "at-large." The practice of distinguishing between automatic and at-large teams was ended after the tournament, and the expanded field of 40 was simply seeded from 1 to 10 in the 1979 tournament.
Kentucky, coached by Joe B. Hall and dominant throughout the entire regular season, won the national title with a closer than it appears 94-88 victory in the final game over Duke, coached by Bill E. Foster. Jack Givens of Kentucky was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
The biggest upset of the tournament took place in the first round, when little-heralded Miami University (Ohio) defeated defending champion Marquette 84-81 in overtime. The victory was even sweeter for Miami Redskins (now RedHawks) fans as former Marquette coach Al McGuire had earlier strongly criticized the NCAA for matching Marquette against Kentucky in the second round, with Marquette being given a first-round opponent in Miami that was supposedly not even worthy of providing an adequate tune-up game for Marquette.
Unranked Cal State Fullerton pulled off two upsets, first over 4th ranked New Mexico (coached by Norm Ellenberger and led by Michael Cooper) and then over top-10 San Francisco (featuring Bill Cartwright). The loss was especially painful for New Mexico as the regional semi finals and finals were scheduled on the Lobos' home court in Albuquerque. Cal State Fullerton then almost upset Arkansas in the West Regional final, losing by 3 points.
The Final Four semifinal games and the National Championship game in St. Louis Arena (a.k.a. The Checkerdome) were not played on the Arena's official floor. Water damage to it forced the NCAA to borrow the floor from Indiana University's Assembly Hall.
Read more about 1978 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament: Locations, Teams
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