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 its second straight appearance; Marquette, making its first appearance since they won the national championship in 1977; Syracuse, making its first appearance since 1996; and Texas, making its first appearance since 1947. Texas was the only top seed to advance to the Final Four; the other three (Arizona, Kentucky, and Oklahoma) advanced as far as the Elite Eight but fell.
Syracuse won its first national championship in three tries under 27th-year head coach Jim Boeheim, who would ultimately retire after the 2022–2023 season. This was also Roy Williams’s final game as Kansas head coach; he would depart after the season to become the head coach at North Carolina.
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.
The following are the sites that were selected to host each round of the 2003 tournament:
Opening Round
First and Second Rounds
- March 20 and 22 Ford Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (Host: Big 12 Conference)
- Jon M. Huntsman Center, Salt Lake City, Utah (Host: University of Utah)
- RCA Dome, Indianapolis, Indiana (Hosts: Butler University and Horizon League)
- Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, Spokane, Washington (Host: Washington State University)
- March 21 and 23 BJCC Arena, Birmingham, Alabama (Host: Southeastern Conference)
- FleetCenter, Boston, Massachusetts (Host: Boston College)
- Gaylord Entertainment Center, Nashville, Tennessee (Host: Vanderbilt University)
- St. Pete Times Forum, Tampa, Florida (Host: University of South Florida)
Regional semifinals and finals (Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight)
National semifinals and championship (Final Four and championship)
The following teams were automatic qualifiers for the 2003 NCAA field by virtue of winning their conference's tournament (except for the Ivy League, whose regular-season champion received the automatic bid).
Listed by region and seeding
editBYU bracketing switch
editWhen the bracket was first revealed, it contained a mistake that would have forced BYU, a Mormon-run school, to play its potential Elite 8 game on a Sunday, which is against school policy. As a solution, the selection committee had a plan to switch BYU, the 12 seed in the Friday-Sunday South regional, with the team that reached the Sweet 16 in the Thursday-Saturday Midwest regional (either Wisconsin, Weber State, Dayton, or Tulsa) should the Cougars advance to the Sweet 16. BYU lost its first-round game to Connecticut, which meant no switches were necessary.
At Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans
Winner advances to 16th seed in South Regional vs. (1) Texas.
East Regional – Albany, New York
editSouth Regional – San Antonio, Texas
editMidwest Regional – Minneapolis, Minnesota
editWest Regional – Anaheim, California
editFinal Four – New Orleans, Louisiana
editOriginally, 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 (Elite Eight) onward were national telecasts.
Westwood One had exclusive national radio coverage.
CBS Sports announcers
edit- Jim Nantz/Billy Packer/Bonnie Bernstein – First & Second Round at Nashville, Tennessee; West Regional at Anaheim, California; Final Four at New Orleans, Louisiana
- Dick Enberg/Matt Guokas/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar/Armen Keteyian – First & Second Round at Salt Lake City, Utah; South Regional at San Antonio, Texas
- Verne Lundquist/Bill Raftery/Lesley Visser – First & Second Round at Boston, Massachusetts; Midwest Regional at Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Gus Johnson/Len Elmore/Solomon Wilcots – First & Second Round at Indianapolis, Indiana; East Regional at Albany, New York
- Kevin Harlan/Jay Bilas/Dwayne Ballen – First & Second Round at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Ian Eagle/Jim Spanarkel/Darren Horton – First & Second Round at Tampa, Florida
- Craig Bolerjack/Dan Bonner/Brett Haber – First & Second Round at Birmingham, Alabama
- Tim Brando/Bob Wenzel/Leslie Maxie – First & Second Round at Spokane, Washington
Westwood One announcers
editFirst and second rounds
editDoug Kennedy and Richard Larsen
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