 Souvenir program from the tournament. | |
| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| City | New York City |
| Venue | Madison Square Garden |
| Dates | March 9–16, 1938 (1938-03-09 –1938-03-16) |
| Teams | 6 |
| Final positions | |
| Champions | Temple Owls(1st title) |
| Runners-up | Colorado Buffaloes |
| Third place | Oklahoma A&M Aggies |
| Fourth place | NYU Violets |
| Awards | |
| MVP | Don Shields (Temple) |
1939 → | |
The1938National Invitation Tournament was the inaugural edition of the annualcollege basketball competition.
The Invitation was won byTemple, who claimed thenational championship with their win over Colorado in the tournament final.[1][2]
Below is a list of the six teams selected for the tournament.[3]
Below is the tournament bracket.[3]
| Opening round March 9 | Semifinals March 14 | Finals March 16 | |||||||||
| Oklahoma A&M | 55 | ||||||||||
| Temple | 53 | Temple | 56 | ||||||||
| Bradley | 40 | Temple | 60 | ||||||||
| Colorado | 36 | ||||||||||
| Colorado | 48 | ||||||||||
| NYU | 39 | NYU | 47 | ||||||||
| Long Island | 37 | Third Place | |||||||||
| Oklahoma A&M | 37 | ||||||||||
| NYU | 24 | ||||||||||
The tournament sweep gave the eastern conference champions clean claim to the mythical national title.
Representatives of this city's official family, leaders in education and prominent men in athletics paid tribute to Temple University's national championship basketball team at the dinner given by Mayor S. Davis Wilson in the ballroom of the Bellevue-Stratford last night. [...] Following his speech Mayor Wilson presented Jimmy Usilton, Temple coach, with a wrist watch and also gave each member of the Owl team a gold ring-tokens of gratitude for the fame and honor which the Templars brought to this city.