| Teams | 16 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finals site | Municipal Auditorium Kansas City, Missouri | ||||
| Champions | Loyola New Orleans (1st title, 1st title game, 1st Final Four) | ||||
| Runner-up | Pepperdine (1st title game, 1st Final Four) | ||||
| Semifinalists |
| ||||
| MVP | Fred Lewis (Eastern Kentucky) | ||||
| |||||
The 1945 NAIA basketball tournament was held in March at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The 8th annual NAIA basketball tournament featured 16 teams playing in a single-elimination format, instead of the normal 32. It is the only tournament to feature only 16 teams.
The NAIA semifinals featured four new teams for the first time since the inaugural year, 1937.
The championship game featured Loyola New Orleans defeating Pepperdine 49–35. Loyola New Orleans would not go on to win another NAIA national title until 2022, 77 years later.
Awards and honors
Many of the records set by the 1945 tournament have been broken, and many of the awards were established much later:
- Leading scorer est. 1963
- Leading rebounder est. 1963
- Charles Stevenson Hustle Award est. 1958
- Coach of the Year est. 1954
- Player of the Year est. 1994
Bracket
| First round | Elite Eight | NAIA national semifinals | NAIA national championship | ||||||||||||
| Central (MO) | 54 | ||||||||||||||
| Eau Claire | 36 | ||||||||||||||
| Central (MO) | 48* | ||||||||||||||
| Eastern Kentucky | 50 | ||||||||||||||
| Eastern Kentucky | 64 | ||||||||||||||
| Simpson | 42 | ||||||||||||||
| Eastern Kentucky | 34 | ||||||||||||||
| TOP TIER | |||||||||||||||
| Pepperdine | 52 | ||||||||||||||
| West Texas State | 54 | ||||||||||||||
| Wichita State | 43 | ||||||||||||||
| West Texas State | 45 | ||||||||||||||
| Pepperdine | 52 | ||||||||||||||
| Pepperdine | 77 | ||||||||||||||
| Peru State | 42 | ||||||||||||||
| Pepperdine | 35 | ||||||||||||||
| Loyola New Orleans | 49 | ||||||||||||||
| Central Normal (IN) | 53 | ||||||||||||||
| Catawba | 39 | ||||||||||||||
| Central Normal | 43 | ||||||||||||||
| Loyola New Orleans | 50 | ||||||||||||||
| Loyola New Orleans | 53 | ||||||||||||||
| Phillips | 31 | ||||||||||||||
| Loyola New Orleans | 37 | ||||||||||||||
| BOTTOM TIER | |||||||||||||||
| Southern Illinois | 35 | ||||||||||||||
| Southern Illinois | 64 | NAIA third-pace game | |||||||||||||
| Washburn | 49 | ||||||||||||||
| Southern Illinois | 61 | Eastern Kentucky | 45 | ||||||||||||
| Doane | 44 | Southern Illinois | 49 | ||||||||||||
| Doane | 54 | ||||||||||||||
| Eastern Washington State | 51 | ||||||||||||||
- * denotes overtime.
See also
References
- "NAIA.org". Archived from the original on July 14, 2012. Retrieved May 16, 2020.
- NAIA Championship History Archived 2008-05-15 at the Wayback Machine
| NAIA men's basketball championship | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chuck Taylor Tournament MVPs | |||||
| Non-divisional (1937–1991, 2021–present) | |||||
| Divisional era (1992–2020) |
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| The NAIA canceled the 2020 tournaments due to the COVID-19 pandemic and removed divisional classifications starting in 2020–21. | |||||