2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
| 2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2006 Final Four logo
|
|||||
| Season | 2005–06 | ||||
| Teams | 65 | ||||
| Finals site |
RCA Dome Indianapolis, Indiana |
||||
| Champions |
Florida (1st title, 2nd title game, 3rd Final Four) |
||||
| Runner-up |
UCLA (13th title game, 16th Final Four) |
||||
| Semifinalists |
|
||||
| Winning coach | Billy Donovan (1st title) | ||||
| MOP | Joakim Noah Florida | ||||
| Attendance | 70,254 | ||||
| Top scorers |
Glen Davis LSU Joakim Noah Florida (97 points) |
||||
|
|||||
The 2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 65 schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2005–06 basketball season. It began on March 14, 2006, and concluded on April 3 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana.
None of the tournament's top seeds advanced to the Final Four, the first time since 1980 that this occurred. For the second time in history, a team seeded eleventh advanced to the Final Four as George Mason of the Colonial Athletic Association won the Washington, D.C. region. They were joined by Atlanta region winner LSU, who was the first team to advance to the Final Four as an eleventh-seed in their most recent appearance there in 1986, Oakland region winner UCLA, who had not made the Final Four since they won the national championship in 1995, and Minneapolis region winner Florida, who had not made the Final Four since their runner-up finish in 2000 in Indianapolis.
Florida won their first ever national basketball championship by defeating UCLA 73-57 in the final game.
Florida's Joakim Noah was named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament.
George Mason's run was one of several upsets by lower-seeded teams in the tournament. For the second consecutive year a #14 seed beat a #3 seed as Northwestern State defeated Iowa. In the same sub-regional pod, #13 seed Bradley defeated #4 seed Kansas and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen by defeating #5 seeded Pittsburgh in the second round. Two #12 seeds won as well, as Montana and Texas A&M both won their respective first round matchups. For the second straight year, Wisconsin-Milwaukee won as a double-digit seed, as the #11 seed Panthers defeated Oklahoma in the first round.
...
Wikipedia