🏀 The 1950-51 men’s college basketball season

What the record holds for this season: the champion, the tournament bracket, the AP poll week by week, the conference tables, and the Elo ratings with the biggest upsets.

Source: Citizen of Nowhere college basketball database · 17 conferences · 16-team tournament

← 1950 1952 →All seasons

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2000s

2009North Carolina 2008Kansas 2007Florida 2006Florida 2005North Carolina 2004Connecticut 2003Syracuse 2002Maryland 2001Duke 2000Michigan State

1990s

1999Connecticut 1998Kentucky 1997Arizona 1996Kentucky 1995UCLA 1994Arkansas 1993North Carolina 1992Duke 1991Duke 1990UNLV

1980s

1989Michigan 1988Kansas 1987Indiana 1986Louisville 1985Villanova 1984Georgetown 1983North Carolina State 1982North Carolina 1981Indiana 1980Louisville

1970s

1979Michigan State 1978Kentucky 1977Marquette 1976Indiana 1975UCLA 1974North Carolina State 1973UCLA 1972UCLA 1971UCLA 1970UCLA

1960s

1969UCLA 1968UCLA 1967UCLA 1966Texas Western 1965UCLA 1964UCLA 1963Loyola-Chicago 1962Cincinnati 1961Cincinnati 1960Ohio State

1950s

1959California 1958Kentucky 1957North Carolina 1956San Francisco 1955San Francisco 1954La Salle 1953Indiana 1952Kansas 1951Kentucky 1950CCNY

1940s

1949Kentucky 1948Kentucky 1947Holy Cross 1946Oklahoma A&M 1945Oklahoma A&M 1944Utah 1943Wyoming 1942Stanford 1941Wisconsin 1940Indiana

1930s

1939Oregon 1938Temple 1937Stanford 1936 1935 1934 1933 1932Purdue 1931Northwestern 1930

1920s

1929Montana State 1928Pittsburgh 1927 1926Syracuse 1925Princeton 1924North Carolina 1923 1922 1921 1920Pennsylvania

1910s

1919 1918Syracuse 1917Washington State 1916Wisconsin 1915Illinois 1914Wisconsin 1913Navy 1912Wisconsin 1911St. John's 1910

1900s

1909Chicago 1908 1907 1906 1905Columbia 1904Columbia 1903 1902Minnesota 1901 1900

1890s

1899 1898 1897 1896

1951season

← 1950 1952 →

1950-51 national champion

The NCAA tournament winner.

National champion

Kentucky

32-2Final AP #1

Title gameKansas State 58, Kentucky 68 (Mar 27)

Final FourKentuckyKansas StateIllinoisOklahoma A&M

The 1951 NCAA tournament

16 teams. Winners in bold, seeds before each team.

16-team field · 2 regions

First Round

Columbia71

Illinois79

North Carolina State67

Second Round

North Carolina State70

Kentucky59

St. John's43

East region

First Round

Columbia71

Illinois79

North Carolina State67

Second Round

North Carolina State70

Kentucky59

St. John's43

West region

First Round

BYU68

Arizona59

Second Round

BYU54

Kansas State64

Oklahoma A&M61

Washington57

Final Four and the title game

Final Four

East · Mar 24

Mar 24

Championship game: Kentucky

Kansas State58

Kentucky68

West vs East · Mar 27

Third-place games

North Carolina State59

St. John's71

Regional Third Place · East · Mar 24

BYU67

Washington80

Regional Third Place · West · Mar 24

Illinois61

Oklahoma A&M46

Third Place Game · Mar 27

Conference tournaments

The champion and the other finalist of each of the 3 conference tournaments held in 1950-51.

Conference	Champion	Runner-up	Final
Ohio Valley	Murray State	Eastern Kentucky
Southeastern	Vanderbilt	Kentucky
Southern	North Carolina State 67-63, Mar 8	Duke	67-63, Mar 8

The 1950-51 AP poll, week by week

Each team's rank in every poll. Tap a rank to read it.

Team	Dec19	26	Jan3	9	16	23	30	Feb6	13	20	27	Mar7
Kentucky	1	1	3	3	2	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Oklahoma A&M	5	3	2	2	1	3	2	2	2	2	2	2
Columbia		8	14	8	7	7	6	6	4	3	3	3
Kansas State	20		9	9	10	9	7	4	3	5	4	4
Illinois		20		14	14	16	14	16	11	10	6	5
Bradley	2	2	1	1	3	4	5	5	8	7	5	6
Indiana	4	5	6	6	6	5	3	3	6	4	7	7
North Carolina State	3	6	7	7	9	8	8	10	9	9	8	8
St. John's	13	12	11	11	5	6	9	7	7	8	9	9
Saint Louis			5	5	8	10	10	8	5	6	10	10
BYU	15					19	12	14	12	12	11	11
Arizona			16			14	15	13	16	11	12	12
Dayton								18	17	14	14	13
Toledo	10	13	19	18	12		20				13	14
Washington	12	15	12	12	15					19	19	15
Murray State											20	16
Cincinnati	17	17	17		16	15	16	11	15	18		17
Siena					18	13		19				18
USC				13	19	12	13	15	13	13	18	19
Villanova	18	7	8	16	11	11	11	9	10	15	15	20
Beloit									18	20	16
UCLA	9						19				17
Long Island	7	4	4	4	4	2	4	12	19	16
Oklahoma	16					18	18			17
Louisville								17	14
Seattle									20
Kansas	11	10	20	17			17	20
La Salle		16		19		17
Wyoming		14	10	10	13	20
St. Bonaventure					17
Duquesne			13	15	20
Princeton			18	20
Cornell	19	18	14
Missouri	8	9
CCNY	6	11
West Virginia		19
Notre Dame	14

Tap a rank to read it.

1951 final AP Top 20

The last Associated Press ranking of the season, with each team's record.

1951 final AP Top 20AP

11BYU28-9
12Arizona24-6
13Dayton27-5
14Toledo22-7
15Washington24-6
16Murray State21-6
17Cincinnati18-4
18Siena19-8
19USC21-6
20Villanova25-7

1951 standings by conference

Overall and conference record. A star marks the regular-season champion, a trophy the conference-tournament champion.

1951 standings by conference17 conferences

Big Seven7 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Kansas State	25-4	11-1	★ NCAA AP 4
Kansas	16-8	8-4
Missouri	16-8	8-4
Oklahoma	14-10	6-6
Nebraska	9-14	4-8
Iowa State	9-12	3-9
Colorado	4-20	2-10

Big Ten10 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Illinois	22-5	13-1	★ NCAA AP 5
Indiana	19-3	12-2	AP 7
Iowa	15-7	9-5
Minnesota	13-9	7-7
Northwestern	12-10	7-7
Wisconsin	10-12	7-7
Michigan State	10-11	5-9
Purdue	8-14	4-10
Michigan	7-15	3-11
Ohio State	6-16	3-11

Border9 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Arizona	24-6	15-1	★ NCAA AP 12
New Mexico A&M	19-14	10-6
Texas Tech	14-14	10-6
New Mexico	13-11	9-7
West Texas State	14-12	9-7
Hardin-Simmons	13-15	6-10
Arizona State	9-16	6-10
Texas Western	10-15	4-12
Northern Arizona	8-19	3-13

Eastern Intercollegiate7 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Columbia	21-1	12-0	★ NCAA AP 3
Cornell	20-5	10-2
Pennsylvania	19-8	7-5
Princeton	15-7	5-7
Yale	14-13	4-8
Harvard	8-18	3-9
Dartmouth	3-23	1-11

Metropolitan New York6 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
St. John's	26-5	6-0	NCAA AP 9
NYU	12-4	3-2
Manhattan	16-6	3-2
Fordham	19-8	3-3
CCNY	12-7	2-2
St. Francis (NY)	19-11	1-5

Mid-American5 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Cincinnati	18-4	7-1	★ AP 17
Western Michigan	13-9	4-4
Ohio	13-11	4-4
Miami (OH)	10-13	4-4
Western Reserve	3-18	1-7

Missouri Valley8 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Oklahoma A&M	29-6	12-2	★ NCAA AP 2
Bradley	32-6	11-3	AP 6
Saint Louis	22-8	11-3	AP 10
Detroit	17-14	7-7
Wichita	9-16	5-9
Drake	11-14	4-10
Tulsa	10-17	4-10
Houston	11-17	2-12

Mountain States6 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
BYU	28-9	15-5	★ NCAA AP 11
Wyoming	26-11	13-7
Utah	23-13	12-8
Denver	14-16	8-12
Colorado A&M	13-20	6-14
Utah State	12-22	6-14

Ohio Valley7 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Murray State	21-6	9-3	★ 🏆 AP 16
Eastern Kentucky	18-8	8-3
Evansville	23-7	5-4
Western Kentucky State	19-10	4-4
Morehead State	14-12	4-7
Marshall	13-13	2-6
Tennessee Tech	12-9	1-6

Pacific Coast9 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Washington	24-6	11-5	★ NCAA AP 15
USC	21-6	8-4	AP 19
UCLA	19-10	8-4
Oregon	18-13	10-6
Washington State	17-15	7-9
Stanford	12-14	5-7
Idaho	15-14	6-10
Oregon State	14-18	6-10
California	16-16	3-9

Rocky Mountain5 teams

School	W-L	Note
Montana State	24-12	★ NCAA
Colorado College	13-9
Idaho State	17-12
Colorado State College	11-11
Colorado Mines	4-15

Southeastern12 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Kentucky	32-2	14-0	★ NCAA AP 1
Vanderbilt	19-8	10-4	🏆
Alabama	15-8	10-4
Tulane	12-12	8-6
Auburn	12-10	6-8
Georgia	13-11	6-8
Florida	11-12	6-8
LSU	10-14	6-8
Georgia Tech	8-19	6-8
Mississippi	12-12	5-9
Tennessee	10-13	5-9
Mississippi State	3-16	2-12

Southern17 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
North Carolina State	30-7	13-1	★ 🏆 NCAA AP 8
West Virginia	18-9	9-3
Clemson	11-7	9-4
William & Mary	20-11	13-6
Duke	20-13	13-6
Virginia Tech	19-10	9-5
South Carolina	13-12	12-7
Maryland	15-10	11-8
North Carolina	12-15	9-8
Wake Forest	16-14	8-9
George Washington	12-12	8-9
Richmond	7-14	5-10
Washington & Lee	8-17	5-13
Davidson	7-19	5-15
Citadel	6-11	2-7
VMI	3-18	3-11
Furman	3-20	1-13

Southwest7 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
TCU	16-9	8-4	★
Texas A&M	17-12	8-4	★ NCAA
Texas	13-14	8-4	★
Arkansas	13-11	7-5
SMU	14-10	6-6
Baylor	8-16	3-9
Rice	8-15	2-10

Western N.Y. Little 33 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
St. Bonaventure	19-6	3-1	★
Niagara	18-10	2-2
Canisius	15-10	1-3

Yankee6 teams

School	W-L	Conf	Note
Rhode Island	13-15	5-2
Connecticut	22-4		★ NCAA
Vermont	14-6
Massachusetts	6-14
Maine	5-13
New Hampshire	4-12

Independent48 teams

School	W-L	Note
Lawrence Tech	20-2
Beloit	24-3
Seattle	32-5
Dayton	27-5	AP 13
Long Island	20-4
Holy Cross	20-5
Villanova	25-7	NCAA AP 20
Seton Hall	24-7
La Salle	22-7
Toledo	22-7	AP 14
Baldwin-Wallace	19-7
Louisville	19-7	NCAA
Navy	16-6
Siena	19-8	AP 18
Syracuse	19-9
San Jose State	18-11	NCAA
Xavier	16-10
Penn State	14-9
Boston College	17-11
Duquesne	16-11
Lafayette	14-11
Loyola Marymount	14-11
Bowling Green	15-12
Colgate	12-10
Valparaiso	12-10
Notre Dame	13-11
Oklahoma City	16-14
Army	9-8
DePaul	13-12
Loyola-Chicago	15-14
St. Joseph's	13-14
Temple	12-13
Miami (FL)	10-12
St. Mary's	9-11
Muhlenberg	11-14
Brown	8-11
Bucknell	9-13
Santa Clara	9-15
Georgetown	8-14
Marquette	8-14
Virginia	8-14
Pittsburgh	9-17
San Francisco	9-17
Creighton	9-18
Rutgers	7-14
Lehigh	6-13
Butler	5-19
John Carroll	2-21

The regular-season game record for this season is missing, so there is no Elo section. Team records come from the season standings.

Where these numbers come from

Enough to disbelieve this page on purpose rather than by accident.

Champions, brackets, polls and standings are read from the Citizen of Nowhere college basketball database, one season at a time. A section appears only where the database holds its data: the NCAA tournament began in 1939 (earlier champions are retroactive selections), the AP poll in 1949, and game-by-game results, and so the Elo ratings and upsets, in 1950.

Elo ratings and upsets come from the site’s own men’s college basketball Elo, built from every game since 1950. An upset’s win chance is the winner’s pre-game probability from those ratings.