The 1980 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 48 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 6, 1980, and ended with the championship game on March 24 in Indianapolis, Indiana. A total of 48 games were played, including a national third place game.
Louisville, coached by Denny Crum, won the national title with a 59-54 victory in the final game over UCLA, coached by Larry Brown. Darrell Griffith of Louisville was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
Structurally speaking, this was the first tournament of the modern era. For the first time:
1. An unlimited number of at-large teams could come from any conference (From 1975-1979, conferences were only allowed one at-large entry).
2. The bracket was seeded to make each region as evenly competitive as possible (previously, geographic considerations had trumped this).
3. All teams were seeded solely based on the subjective judgment of the committee (in 1979, seeding was also partially based on the prior performance of a conference winner's conference).
In the second year the tournament field was seeded, no number one seed reached the Final Four. This would not happen again until 2006 and also occurred in 2011.
UCLA would later forfeit its place in the standings after players representing the school were declared ineligible by the NCAA.
Read more about 1980 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament: Teams
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