1973 NCAA University Division Basketball Tournament
The 1973 NCAA University Division Basketball Tournament involved 25 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA University Division (now Division I, created later in 1973) college basketball. It began on Saturday, March 10, and ended with the championship game on Monday, March 26, in St. Louis, Missouri. A total of 29 games were played, including a third place game in each region and a national third place game. Led by longtime head coach John Wooden, the UCLA Bruins won their seventh consecutive national title with an  87–66 victory in the final game over Memphis State, coached by Gene Bartow, a future head coach at UCLA. Junior center Bill Walton of UCLA was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. This was the first year that the championship game was held on a Monday night, with Saturday semifinals. Previously, the championship game was on Saturday, with the semifinals on either Thursday or Friday. Also, this was the first year matchups in the semifinals rotated; previously, it was East vs. Mideast and West vs. Midwest every year. Tournament notes. The UCLA – Memphis State championship game made "USA Today"′s  list of the greatest NCAA tournament games of all time at #18. Bill Walton set a championship game record, hitting 21 of 22 shots and scoring 44 points. This tournament marked the first appearance of Bob Knight as coach of Indiana University. The participation for this tournament, as well as the previous tournament, for Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) was vacated on August 5, 1973, when the NCAA Committee on Infractions ruled the university guilty of over 100 violations, including impermissible benefits and doctoring high school transcripts of players. USL's program was shut down for  the 1973–74 and 1974–75 seasons, all other Ragin Cajun' athletic programs were placed on three years' probation and banned from postseason participation, and the university was stripped of voting rights at the NCAA convention until 1977 (the NCAA originally planned to expel USL from the organization, but that sanction was downgraded in January 1974). Schedule and venues. The following are the sites that were selected to host each round of the 1973 tournament: First Round Regional Semifinals, 3rd Place Games, and Finals (Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight) National Semifinals, 3rd Place Game, and Championship (Final Four and Championship) The city  of St. Louis became the 12th host city, and the St. Louis Arena became the thirteenth host venue, of the Final Four. The arena, home to the St. Louis Blues of the NHL and, at the time, the St. Louis Billikens basketball team, was the first of five straight venues to host the Final Four for the first time, and it was the first time the tournament was held in the city of St. Louis as well. Besides the St. Louis Arena, only one other venue made its debut in the tournament. For the second straight year, the tournament opened  a new city in the state of Tennessee; this time, it was the capital city of Nashville. Memorial Gym on the campus of Vanderbilt University would go on to host the tournament four times overall before tournament games in the city were moved to the downtown Bridgestone Arena in 2000. Additionally, only one venue saw its final games in the 1972 Tournament, with William & Mary Hall ending its usage in the tournament. The tournament has come back to the state of Virginia twice since, both times being at the Richmond Coliseum in the capital city of Richmond. Bracket. <nowiki>*</nowiki > – Denotes overtime period Aftermath. The 1973 NC State Wolfpack team averaged 93 points per game (ppg), led the nation in win margin (21.8 ppg), and posted a 27–0 record, but was ineligible for postseason play because of NCAA probation. David Thompson, a two-time national Player of the Year, and All-America Tom Burleson, led NC State to a 30–1 record the following season, losing only to seven-time defending champion UCLA. The Wolfpack avenged its only loss during the two-year period by defeating UCLA in the 1974 Final Four and winning the title. Gene Bartow, the Memphis  State coach, would be John Wooden's successor at UCLA after the 1974–1975 season. The tournament marked the last appearance of the Oklahoma City Chiefs, whose 11 tournament appearances are the most among teams no longer in Division I. The school would transition to the NAIA in 1985.