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The 1987 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 12, 1987, and ended with the championship game on March 30 in New Orleans, Louisiana. A total of 63 games were played.

Indiana, coached by Bob Knight, won the national title with a 74–73 victory in the final game over Syracuse, coached by Jim Boeheim. Keith Smart of Indiana, who hit the game-winner in the final seconds, and intercepted the full court pass at the last second, was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. The tournament also featured a "Cinderella team" in the Final Four, as Providence College, led by a then-unknown Rick Pitino, made their first Final Four appearance since 1973. This was also the last tournament in which teams were allowed to have home court advantage: Syracuse (2E), DePaul (3MW), Arizona (10W) and UAB (11SE) all opened the tournament playing on their home courts. The 1987 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament was also the first tournament to use the three-point shot.

Locations

Atlanta

Indianapolis

Charlotte

Syracuse

Rosemont

Birmingham

Tucson

Salt Lake City

1987 first and second rounds

Seattle

Louisville

Cincinnati

E. Rutherford

New Orleans

1987 Regionals (blue) and Final Four (red)

First & Second Rounds

Regional Sites and Final Four

For the second time, the Louisiana Superdome hosted the Final Four. There were four domed stadiums in the 1987 tournament, including Indianapolis, New Orleans, Seattle and Syracuse. There were two new venues, the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis and the Rosemont Horizon, located in suburban Chicago. This marked the first time the Tournament returned to the Chicago area in twenty years. This also marked the last appearance of the original Charlotte Coliseum, moving to the new Coliseum in 1991.

Teams

Bracket

* – Denotes overtime period

East Regional – East Rutherford, New Jersey

Regional Final Summary

Southeast Regional – Louisville, Kentucky

Regional Final Summary

Midwest Regional – Cincinnati, Ohio

West Regional – Seattle, Washington

Final Four @ New Orleans, Louisiana

Game Summaries

National Championship

Trivia

• The 59th Academy Awards show was broadcast on the ABC network at the same time as CBS network broadcast of the championship game between Indiana and Syracuse. Oscars show host Chevy Chase quipped later in the evening, "Is the game over yet?" The Oscars show would subsequently be scheduled around the tournament broadcast by moving it later in April for two years.


• 
  Angelo Pizzo and David Anspaugh, nominated for Oscars for the movie Hoosiers and Indiana University grads, skipped the Oscars to watch IU win the championship game against Syracuse.


• Tenth seeded LSU reached the Elite Eight for the second straight year without being favored to win a game. They had previously reached the Final Four as an 11-seed in 1986, losing to eventual national champion Louisville Cardinals. The Tigers missed a shot at the buzzer and fell short of another trip to the Final Four, losing 77-76 to eventual national champion Indiana.


• This marked the first time that CBS Sports used "One Shining Moment" during their tournament epilogue.


• The three losing coaches in the Final Four all eventually won national titles. Jerry Tarkanian was the first to do so, winning in 1990 with UNLV defeating the Duke University Blue Devils 103–73. The following year 1991, Duke defeated UNLV in the National Semi-final game to end UNLV's chance to finish undefeated. Rick Pitino followed in 1996 with Kentucky, defeating Jim Boeheim's Syracuse team in the final. Boeheim would win in 2003 with Syracuse by defeating the University of Kansas Jayhawks.


• There were no teams from the Metro Conference, Big South Conference or Gulf Star Conference in the tournament. The Metro Conference allowed Memphis State, which was serving an NCAA tournament ban that year, to compete in its conference tournament, which it won by defeating the defending 1986 National Champion Louisville Cardinals by the lopsided score 75 to 52 on the Cardinals' home court, Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. The NCAA basketball tournament committee said as the conference had committed its automatic berth would go to its conference tournament winner, the conference lost its automatic berth that year, and no other schools received an at-large entry. Most conferences now prohibit teams on postseason bans from participating in conference tournaments as a result, or have provisional automatic bids awarded to the eligible team that advanced the most. The Gulf Star and Big South did not have automatic bids to the tournament because many of the schools in these conferences were transitioning from other divisions.

Announcers

• 
  Brent Musburger and Billy Packer (East Regional & Final Four)


• 
  Dick Stockton and Tom Heinsohn (Southeast Regional)


• 
  Verne Lundquist and Billy Cunningham (Midwest Regional)


• 
  Gary Bender and Hubie Brown (West Regional)


• 
  Mike Patrick and Larry Conley (early rounds)


• 
  Tim Brant and Bill Raftery (early rounds)

See also

• 1987 NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Tournament


• 1987 NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Tournament


• 1987 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament


• 1987 NCAA Division II Women's Basketball Tournament


• 1987 NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Tournament


• 1987 National Invitation Tournament


• 1987 National Women's Invitation Tournament


• 1987 NAIA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament


• 1987 NAIA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament

References