The 2008 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 65 schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2007–08 basketball season. It began on March 18, 2008, and concluded as the Kansas Jayhawks defeated the Memphis Tigers 75-68 in overtime on April 7 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, to win their fifth national championship, and third NCAA championship. The host institution was the University of Texas at San Antonio. For the first time in tournament history since seeding began, the top seeded team from each of the four regionals made it to the final four: Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina, and UCLA. On August 20, 2009, the NCAA forced Memphis to vacate all of its wins from the 2007-08 season, as well as their trip to the Final Four and the NCAA Championship Game. The penalty, which was due to use of the ineligible Derrick Rose, was upheld by the NCAA Infractions Appeals Committee on March 22, 2010. Entering the tournament on March 18, the top ranked team was North Carolina in both the AP Top 25 and the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Polls, followed by Memphis, UCLA and Kansas.
American University, UMBC, Texas-Arlington, and Portland State all entered the tournament for the first time in their school's history. Another school, Coppin State won the MEAC Tournament to became the first 20-loss school ever to make the field. The first round of the tournament featured some unprecedented upsets, with four upsets in all four games played in Tampa. The surprise of the tournament was tenth-seeded Davidson, who advanced to the Elite Eight before losing to eventual champion Kansas 59-57, each team's closest game of the tournament. This tournament was also notable for being the only one to date to feature two 12 vs. 13 matchups.
The total tournament attendance of 763,607 set a record for highest total tournament attendance, breaking the record set during the 1999 tournament.
Read more about 2008 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament: Tournament Procedure, Qualifying Teams, Record By Conference
Famous quotes containing the words men, division and/or basketball:
“The welfare, the happiness, the energy and spirit of the men and women who do the daily work ... is the underlying necessity of all prosperity.... There can be nothing wholesome unless their life is wholesome; there can be no contentment unless they are contented.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“For a small child there is no division between playing and learning; between the things he or she does “just for fun” and things that are “educational.” The child learns while living and any part of living that is enjoyable is also play.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)