2003 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament


The 2003 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament involved 65 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 18, 2003, and ended with the championship game on April 7 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the Superdome. A total of 64 games were played.
The Final Four consisted of Kansas, making their second straight appearance, Marquette, making their first appearance since they won the national championship in 1977, Syracuse, making their first appearance since 1996, and Texas, making their first appearance since 1947. Texas was the only top seed to advance to the Final Four; the other three advanced as far as the Elite Eight but fell.
Syracuse won their first national championship in three tries under Jim Boeheim, defeating Kansas 81–78 in what would be Roy Williams' final game as head coach of the team; he would depart to become the head coach at North Carolina, a position he still holds as of the 2019–2020 season.
Carmelo Anthony of Syracuse was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
Syracuse beat four Big 12 teams on its way to the title: Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. Those victories helped earn Boeheim the national title that had eluded him in 1987 and 1996.

Locations

The 2003 play-in game was played on Tuesday, March 18, at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio, as it had been since its inception in 2001.
The first and second-round games were played at the following sites:
;March 20 and 22:
;March 21 and 23:
The regional final sites were:
;March 27 and 29:
;March 28 and 30:
Each regional winner advanced to the Final Four at the Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, hosted by the Sun Belt Conference and the University of New Orleans. The semi-final games were held on April 5 and the final on April 7, 2003. New Orleans was the host city for the fourth time, and the first time since 1993. There were three new venues, only one of which was in a new host city. For the first time, the tournament came to Spokane, Washington and the Spokane Arena. Previous games in eastern Washington had been played on the campus of Washington State University, who was host of the games despite the arena being the alternate home court for the Gonzaga Bulldogs. The tournament returned to Oklahoma City in 2003, to the then-new Ford Center, which replaced the Cox Convention Center across the street as the city's major arena. And for the first time since 1983, the tournament returned to the city of Tampa at the St. Pete Times Forum, home to the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning. The tournament had been held across Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg three times between appearances in Tampa. To date, this is the last tournament to feature what is now known as the Times Union Center in Albany; however, the tournament was scheduled to return to New York's state capital in 2020 prior to its cancellation.

Qualifying teams

Final Four

At Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans

National Semifinals

* – Denotes overtime period

East Regional – Albany, New York

South Regional – San Antonio, Texas

Midwest Regional – Minneapolis, Minnesota

West Regional – Anaheim, California

Final Four – New Orleans, Louisiana

Broadcast information

Originally, CBS Sports was to have shown all 63 games of the tournament following the opening round, which was on ESPN. However, because of the start of the Iraq War the night before, the afternoon games on Thursday and Friday were moved to ESPN while retaining CBS graphics and production. CBS News then joined other broadcast and non-broadcast outlets in showing extended news coverage.
Thursday and Friday night's games were shown on CBS, albeit with frequent news updates. To make up for lost advertising revenue, an additional time slot was opened the following Sunday evening for more CBS telecasts.
2003 also marked the debut of Mega March Madness as an exclusive package on DirecTV. This offered additional game broadcasts not available to the viewer's home market during the first three rounds of the tournament. All games from the 4th round onward were national telecasts.
Westwood One had exclusive national radio coverage.

CBS Sports announcers

First and second rounds

Doug Kennedy and Richard Larsen

Regionals

Final four