The 1990 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of NCAA Division Imen's college basketball. It began on March 15, 1990, and ended with the championship game on April 2 in Denver, Colorado. A total of 63 games were played. UNLV, coached by Jerry Tarkanian, won the national title with a 103–73 victory in the final game over Duke, coached by Mike Krzyzewski. In doing so, UNLV set the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament record for largest margin of victory in a championship game. UNLV's win marks the last time a school from a non-power conference has won the championship game. Anderson Hunt of UNLV was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. This tournament is also remembered for an emotional run by Loyola Marymount in the West regional. In the semifinals of the West Coast Conference tournament, Lions star forward Hank Gathers collapsed and died due to a heart condition. The WCC tournament was immediately suspended, with the regular-season champion Lions given the conference's automatic bid. The team defeated New Mexico State, then laid a 34-point thrashing on defending national champion Michigan, and defeated Alabama in the Sweet Sixteen before running into eventual champion UNLV in the regional final. Gathers' childhood friend Bo Kimble, the team's undisputed floor leader in the wake of the tragedy, paid tribute to his friend by attempting his first free throw in each game left-handed despite being right-handed. Kimble made all of his left-handed attempts in the tournament. The tournament employed a new timing system borrowed from FIBA & the NBA: when the game was played in an NBA arena, the final minute of the period is measured in tenths-seconds, rather than whole seconds as in previous years.
Locations
First and second rounds
Regional sites and Final Four
Denver became the 23rd host city, and McNichols Sports Arena the 26th host venue, for the Final Four, the only time it has hosted. Two new cities, Oakland, California and Richmond, Virginia, became host cities in 1990. Games had not been played in the East Bay region since 1958 when Cal's Men's Gym hosted; the tournament has returned twice since. Richmond became the third city in Virginia, after Blacksburg and Williamsburg, to host tournament games; like the previous cities it has only hosted twice. Additionally, the tournament returned to Knoxville for the first time since 1983, this time at the new Thompson–Boling Arena. This year also marked the second and, to date, last appearance of the Long Beach Arena in the tournament; with newer, larger venues in Los Angeles and Anaheim, it is unlikely to return soon. Any future tournament games to be played in the San Francisco area would be played at SAP Center or Chase Center & in Denver at the Pepsi Center.
Brent Musburger and Billy Packer – First Round at Salt Lake City, Utah; Second Round at Austin, Texas and Richmond, Virginia; West Regional at Oakland, California; Final Four at Denver, Colorado. Musburger's final games for CBS.
