UNLV, coached by Jerry Tarkanian, won the national title with a 103–73 victory in the final game over Duke, coached by Mike Krzyzewski. In doing so, UNLV set the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament record for largest margin of victory in a championship game. UNLV's win marks the last time a school from a non-power conference has won the championship game. Anderson Hunt of UNLV was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
This tournament is also remembered for an emotional run by Loyola Marymount in the West regional. In the quarterfinals of the West Coast Conference tournament against the Portland Pilots, Lions star forward Hank Gathers collapsed and died due to a heart condition. The WCC tournament was immediately suspended, with the regular-season champion Lions given the conference's automatic bid. The team defeated New Mexico State, then laid a 34-point thrashing on defending national champion Michigan, and defeated Alabama in the Sweet Sixteen (the only game in which Loyola Marymount did not score 100 or more points in the tournament) before running into eventual champion UNLV in the regional final. Gathers' childhood friend Bo Kimble, the team's undisputed floor leader in the wake of the tragedy, paid tribute to his friend by attempting his first free throw in each game left-handed despite being right-handed. (Gathers was right-handed, but struggled so much with free throws that he tried shooting them left-handed for a time.) Kimble made all of his left-handed attempts in the tournament.
The tournament employed a new timing system borrowed from FIBA & the NBA: when the game was played in an NBA arena, the final minute of the period is measured in tenths-seconds, rather than whole seconds as in previous years.
McNichols Arena – Denver Attendance: 17,675 Referees: Ed Hightower, Richie Ballesteros and Tim Higgins
Announcers
CBS and NCAA Productions broadcast all tournament games.
CBS
Jim Nantz and James Brown served as hosts for the first-round games, while Mike Francesca served as analyst for the remaining rounds of the tournament.
Brent Musburger and Billy Packer – First round (Ohio State–Providence) at Salt Lake City, Utah; Second Round at Austin, Texas and Richmond, Virginia; West Regional at Oakland, California; Final Four at Denver, Colorado. Musburger's final games for CBS.
Dick Stockton and Hubie Brown – Second Round at Atlanta, Georgia; East Regional at East Rutherford, New Jersey
James Brown and Bill Raftery – Second Round at Hartford, Connecticut and Indianapolis, Indiana; Midwest Regional at Dallas, Texas
Greg Gumbel and Quinn Buckner – First round (New Mexico State–Loyola-Marymount) and Second Round at Long Beach, California; Southeast Regional at New Orleans, Louisiana
This would be the last year that ESPN would be involved in broadcasting games of the tournament, as CBS took over exclusive coverage of the tournament the following year.
Bob Carpenter and Clark Kellogg – First round (Indiana–California, Clemson–Brigham Young) at Hartford, Connecticut
Mike Gorman and Ron Perry – First round (La Salle–Southern Mississippi) at Hartford, Connecticut
Fred White and Larry Conley – First round (St. John's–Temple, Kansas–Robert Morris) at Atlanta, Georgia
Ralph Hacker and Dan Belluomini – First round (UCLA–UAB) at Atlanta, Georgia
Ron Franklin and Bob Ortegel – First round (North Carolina–SW Missouri State, Arkansas–Princeton) at Austin, Texas
Frank Fallon and Jack Corrigan - First Round (Dayton-Illinois) at Austin Texas
Tom Hammond and Gary Thompson – First round (Georgetown–Texas Southern, Georgia–Texas) at Indianapolis, Indiana
Mick Hubert and Jim Gibbons – First round (Xavier–Kansas State) at Indianapolis, Indiana; First round (Arizona–South Florida) at Long Beach, California
Mike Patrick and Dan Bonner – First round (Missouri–Northern Iowa, Syracuse–Coppin State) at Richmond, Virginia
Barry Tompkins and Mike Rice – First round (Alabama–Colorado State, Michigan–Illinois State) at Long Beach, California
Tournament notes
Loyola Marymount's Jeff Fryer made 11 three-point field goals against Michigan to set the NCAA tournament record which still stands as of 2023. He took 15 three-point attempts.
Loyola Marymount's 149–115 win over Michigan set a new tournament record for most combined points (264).
UNLV at the time had the largest accumulated victory margin (112 points), over the entire tournament by a championship team that played 6 games. To date it is the fifth-largest.[1]
UNLV's 103–73 win over Duke marked the first, (and to date, only), time in the history of the tournament that at least 100 points were scored in the championship game.[2]
UNLV's 571 points over six games set the record for most points scored by a single team in any one year of the tournament.[3]
UNLV is the only team in tournament history to average more than 95 points per game, over six games. In six tournament games, they won three by exactly 30 points, while scoring more than 100 points in each 30-point victory.[4]
UNLV and UCLA in 1965 are the only teams in tournament history to win three games all while scoring at least 100 points in each win. (Loyola Marymount also scored at least 100 points in three games in the 1990 tournament, but lost their last game, where they scored 101 points, to UNLV, by 30 points. UNLV also scored at least 100 points in three victories in the 1977 tournament, but their last one was in the Final Four consolation game.)[3]
UNLV's 30-point margin of victory in the championship game is also a tournament record.[5] ESPN called it the 36th “worst blowout in sports history.”[6]
To date, UNLV remains the last team from a non-power conference (AAC, ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC) to win the national championship, since Louisville in 1986.[2] (Louisville was in The Metro Conference in 1986, which was considered a major basketball conference throughout its history, 1975 - 1995.)
The championship game was UNLV's eleventh-consecutive win. They would eventually run the win streak to an astounding 45 games. That is the fourth-longest win streak in NCAA Division 1 basketball history, and the longest win streak since the longest one ever, by UCLA, ended in 1974.[7]
