1977 NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament


The 1977 NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament involved 32 American schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the National Champion of Men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on Saturday, March 12, 1977, and ended with the championship game on Monday, March 28 in Atlanta. A total of 32 games were played, including a national third place game. This was the final tournament in which teams were not seeded.
Marquette, coached by Al McGuire, won the national title with a 67–59 victory in the final game over North Carolina, coached by Dean Smith. Butch Lee of Marquette was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Publicly announcing his retirement during the middle of the season, McGuire retired as head coach immediately after the game. UNLV and UNC Charlotte were third and fourth place, respectively. Marquette's seven losses were a record at the time for the most losses in a season by a national champion, exceeded four years later in 1981 by Indiana with nine.
All four regionals were played on Thursday and Saturday. The opening round the preceding weekend played twelve games on Saturday and four on Sunday.
As of the 2019 NCAA Tournament, this was the last time the six Division I college basketball-playing schools in the Philadelphia metropolitan area – Drexel, La Salle, Penn, St. Joseph's, Temple, and Villanova – were collectively shut out of the NCAA Tournament.

Locations

The 1977 tournament saw Atlanta become the sixteenth host city to the Final Four, something it has done thrice since. As of 2019, Atlanta is the last city to host the Final Four as the first time the area had hosted portions of the tournament and the Omni Coliseum would be the last facility until 2019 to host the Final Four without hosting a previous tournament. Three cities – Bloomington, Indiana, Norman, Oklahoma and Omaha, Nebraska – were hosts to the tournament for the first time; of those three, Norman has not hosted since. Also, the tournament returned to Oklahoma City for just the second time ever; it would be another 17 years before it would host again, however.

Teams

Bracket

* – Denotes overtime period

East region

Cole Field House – College Park, Maryland
First round games were played at Raleigh, North Carolina and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Saturday, March 12.

West region

Most of the excitement surrounding the Western Regional was the anticipated matchup between top-five-ranked teams UCLA and UNLV. Jerry Tarkanian had lost three times in the tournament to UCLA while he was at Long Beach State, including a heartbreaking 57–55 loss in the 1971 West Regional final in which Long Beach led by eleven in the second half. Many felt this UNLV team gave him the best opportunity to beat his longtime nemesis. But he never got the chance as UCLA was stunned in the regional semi final by unranked Idaho State of the Big Sky Conference. This was the first time since 1963 that UCLA made the tournament but failed to get to the Final Four. Down by a point at halftime, UNLV went on to easily beat Idaho State
Marriott Center – Provo, Utah
First round games were played at Pocatello, Idaho and Tucson, Arizona on Saturday, March 12.

Mideast region

Rupp Arena – Lexington, Kentucky
First round games were played at Bloomington, Indiana and Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Sunday, March 13.

Midwest region

Myriad Convention Center – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
First round games were played at Omaha, Nebraska and Norman, Oklahoma on Saturday, March 12.

Final Four

Omni Coliseum – Atlanta, Georgia