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The 1951 NCAA basketball tournament involved 16 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 20, 1951, and ended with the championship game on March 27 at Williams Arena in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A total of 18 games were played, including a third place game in each region and a national third place game.

Kentucky, coached by Adolph Rupp, won the national title with a 68–58 victory over Kansas State, coached by Jack Gardner.

This NCAA tournament was the first with a 16-team field. Only the championship and third place games were held in Minneapolis, while the semifinals were held in the respective regional sites; similar to previous years. A true "Final 4" (semifinals and final at same location) debuted the following year.

The twelve-team National Invitation Tournament (NIT) was held the previous week in New York City at Madison Square Garden, with its championship on Saturday, Mach 17. Four teams competed in both tournaments, including NIT champion BYU;^[1][2][3] they lost in the quarterfinal round, by ten points to Kansas State.^[4][5]

The three other teams were Arizona, North Carolina State, and St. John's.

The following are the sites selected to host each round of the 1951 tournament:

March 20

Madison Square Garden, New York, New York (Host: Metropolitan New York Conference)

Reynolds Coliseum, Raleigh, North Carolina (Host: North Carolina State University)

March 21 and 22

Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Missouri (Host: Missouri Valley Conference)

March 22 and 24

East Regional, Madison Square Garden, New York, New York (Host: Metropolitan New York Conference)

March 23 and 24

West Regional, Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Missouri (Host: Missouri Valley Conference)

March 27

Williams Arena, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Hosts: University of Minnesota, Big Ten Conference)

Source:^[6]

• ^a Despite what some NCAA publications have printed many years later—that Kentucky's Bill Spivey won the 1951 award—no official vote occurred after the game and no player was officially presented as the winner.^[7][8] A news article printed by the Lexington Herald-Leader on April 7, 1951, titled "What Happened To NCAA's MVP Award?" detailed this mysterious divergence of precedent.^[9] Reporter Ed Ashford wrote, "For 11 consecutive years a most valuable player was chosen after the NCAA basketball tournament. However this year, for some unexplained reason, no poll was taken and there was no MVP honored. Whether the authorities just forgot about it or decided to eliminate balloting for the honor is not known. If a poll had been taken, it is likely that Kentucky would have garnered its third MVP award in the last four years. Alex Groza won the honor in 1948 and 1949 while Bill Spivey and Shelby Linville would have been strong contenders for the award this year."^[9]