NAIA Men's Basketball District Regionals

The NAIA Men's Basketball District Regionals were held in each of the NAIA's 32 districts between 1951 and 1993 to determine the 32 entrants into the NAIA Men's Basketball Tournament. Beginning in 1994, this function was superseded by conference championships and the awarding of at-large berths. District tournaments were held in some districts prior to 1951, but those are currently beyond the scope of this research, as it was not until 1951 that the NAIA mandated the use of some form of district selection process (although in some instances, this still amounted to a committee selection rather than a playoff of any sort). In some districts, conference tournaments did serve as the de facto district tournament, but this was generally reserved for situations where every school in the district was a member of the same conference anyway. This was the case, for example, with the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (1924-2013) in many years. Prior to "full integration", several districts were set aside specifically to allow qualification for what we now call Historically Black Colleges, and for many years the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association champion had its choice of going to the NCAA Small College tournament or going to the NAIA as the representative for District 29. If the champion picked the NCAA, the runner-up would become the District 29 representative.

Within each district, the method of selection varied greatly. Some districts maintained a relatively stable selection method for many years, while other districts seem to have altered their selection method almost annually.

Information on many of these regional tournaments remains very sketchy, and there are many gaps in the data needing to be filled. Many areas of the country which are and were NAIA strongholds are lacking in freely-available newspaper archive information, which has made the task of assembling this data even more arduous. Additionally, be advised that the absence of particular information does not mean it doesn't exist; most specifically, in many cases third-place games may have been played which are not noted, or what has been listed here as a two-team playoff may indeed have been a four-team affair with no information thus far uncovered regarding the semifinal round games.

Research Information

Google News Archive was used to compile the base of this information; individual school media guides were also consulted where available (and useful), after which Google was re-consulted with additional search criteria. The Pittsburgh Press, Wilmington Star-News, and Milwaukee Journal consistently provided the most comprehensive national listing of scores (and, by extension, presumptive dates) for NAIA regional action, although in many cases regional papers were necessary for scores. In all cases except for those districts which these papers served as primary sources, regional papers were required to uncover sites. On each individual district page, these sources are noted. There were other papers which are unlisted on those pages which provided occasional information on random hits, but for the most part the primary sources listed were found to have more or less been consistently useful in this project. If no primary source is listed, it is virtually certain that information from local papers in that area is necessary to complete this project, and any assistance from readers with access to those papers' archives would be deeply appreciated.