The 1946 NAIA basketball tournament was held in March at
Municipal Auditorium in
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...
. The 9th annual
NAIA basketball tournament featured 32 teams playing in a single-elimination format.
The championship game was won by
Southern Illinois
Southern Illinois is a region of the U.S. state of Illinois comprising the southern third of the state, principally south of Interstate 70. Part of downstate Illinois, it is bordered by the two List of U.S. rivers by discharge, most voluminous ri ...
when the Salukis defeated the
Indiana State
Indiana State University (ISU) is a public university in Terre Haute, Indiana, United States. It was founded in 1865 and offers over 100 undergraduate majors and more than 75 graduate and professional programs. Indiana State is classified ...
Sycamores, 49-40.
Central Missouri State
The University of Central Missouri (UCM) is a public university in Warrensburg, Missouri, United States.
In 2024, enrollment was 13,734 students from 48 states and 52 countries on its 1,561-acre campus. UCM offers 150 programs of study, inclu ...
, the original National Champions, and first back-to-back National Champions, played in their final NAIA tournament, although they remained an NAIA member for another decade, leaving in the mid 1950s to join the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...
. The Mules appeared seven tournaments recording an overall record of 13 wins and 6 losses. The Mules won two National Championships in 1937 and
1938
Events
January
* January 1 – state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS).
* January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Saf ...
and finishing in 4th place in
1942
The Uppsala Conflict Data Program project estimates this to be the deadliest year in human history in terms of conflict deaths, placing the death toll at 4.62 million. However, the Correlates of War estimates that the prior year, 1941, was th ...
.
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.
NAIA Championship History
Bracket
* * denotes overtime.
See also
* 1946 NCAA basketball tournament
The 1946 NCAA basketball tournament involved eight schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 21, 1946, and ended with the championship game on ...
* 1946 National Invitation Tournament
The 1946 National Invitation Tournament was the 1946 edition of the annual NCAA college basketball competition.
Selected teams
Below is a list of the eight teams selected for the tournament.
References
{{NAIA men's basketball tournament
NAIA men's basketball championship
Tournament
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...
NAIA Basketball Tournament