The 2001 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 for the 2000–01 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. It began on March 13, 2001, with the play-in game, and ended with the championship game on April 2 in Minneapolis, at the Metrodome. A total of 64 games were played.
This tournament is the first to feature 65 teams, due to the Mountain West Conference receiving an automatic bid for the first time. This meant that 31 conferences would have automatic bids to the tournament. The NCAA decided to maintain 34 at-large bids, which necessitated a play-in game between the #64 and #65 ranked teams, with the winner playing against a #1 seed in the first round. (Another option would have been to reduce the number of at-large bids to 33, which was the option chosen for the women's tournament.) This is also the first tournament to have been broadcast in high-definition, being broadcast on CBS.
This was the last tournament where the first- and second-round sites were tied to specific regionals. The "pod system" was instituted for the 2002 tournament to keep as many teams as possible closer to their campus in the first two rounds.
The Final Four consisted of Duke, making their second appearance in the Final Four in three years, Maryland, making their first appearance, Michigan State, the defending national champions, and Arizona, making their first appearance since winning the national championship in 1997.
Duke defeated Arizona 82–72 in the national championship game to win their third national title and first since 1992. Shane Battier of Duke was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
Schedule and venues
The following are the sites that were selected to host each round of the 2001 tournament:
Opening Round
March 13
University of Dayton Arena, Dayton, Ohio (Host: University of Dayton)
First and Second Rounds
March 15 and 17
East Region
Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina (Host: Atlantic Coast Conference) Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, New York (Hosts: Hofstra University, America East Conference) West Region BSU Pavilion, Boise, Idaho (Host: Boise State University) Cox Arena, San Diego, California (Host: San Diego State University) March 16 and 18 Midwest Region University of Dayton Arena, Dayton, Ohio (Host: University of Dayton) Kemper Arena, Kansas City, Missouri (Host: Big 12 Conference) South Region Memphis Pyramid, Memphis, Tennessee (Host: University of Memphis) Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana (Hosts: Sun Belt Conference, University of New Orleans)
Regional semifinals and finals (Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight) March 22 and 24 East Regional, First Union Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Host: Atlantic 10 Conference) West Regional, Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, Anaheim, California (Host: Big West Conference) March 23 and 25 Midwest Regional, Alamodome, San Antonio, Texas (Host: University of Texas at San Antonio) South Regional, Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia (Host: Georgia Tech)
National semifinals and championship (Final Four and championship) March 31 and April 2 Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Host: University of Minnesota)
Qualifying teams
Automatic bids
The following teams were automatic qualifiers for the 2001 NCAA field by virtue of winning their conference's tournament (except for the Ivy League and Pac-10, whose regular-season champions received their automatic bids).