The 1997âÂÂ98 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began in November 1997 and concluded with the 64-team 1998 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, whose finals were held at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. The Kentucky Wildcats earned their seventh national championship by defeating the Utah Utes 78âÂÂ69 on March 30, 1998. They were coached by Tubby Smith and the NCAA basketball tournament Most Outstanding Player was Kentucky's Jeff Shepherd.
In the 32-team 1998 National Invitation Tournament, the Minnesota Golden Gophers defeated the Penn State Nittany Lions at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Following the season, the 1998 NCAA Men's Basketball All-American Consensus First Team included Mike Bibby, Antawn Jamison, Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce, and Miles Simon. The consensus second team was composed of Vince Carter, Mateen Cleaves, Pat Garrity, Richard Hamilton, and Ansu Sesay.
The top 25 from the pre-season AP Poll.
These schools joined new conferences for the 1997âÂÂ98 season.
Georgetown, which had used off-campus USAirways Arena (previously known as Capital Centre and USAir Arena) in Landover, Maryland, as its home court since the 1981âÂÂ82 season, played three last home games there in November 1997 before moving in December 1997 to the new MCI Center (later known as the Verizon Center and as Capital One Arena), an off-campus site in Washington, D.C. The Hoyas played their first home game at the MCI Center on December 3, 1997, losing their Big East Conference opener to 73âÂÂ69 before a crowd of 13,181.
Twenty-eight conferences concluded their regular seasons with a single-elimination tournament, with only the Ivy League and the Pacific-10 Conference choosing not to conduct conference tournaments. Most conference tournament winners received an automatic bid to the 1998 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.
For the seventh consecutive season, the Philadelphia Big 5 did not play a full round-robin schedule in which each team met each other team once, a format it had used from its first season of competition in 1955âÂÂ56 through the 1990âÂÂ91 season. Instead, each team played only two games against other Big 5 members, and all five teams finished with 1âÂÂ1 records in head-to-head competition among the Big 5. The Big 5 did not revive its full round-robin schedule until the 1999âÂÂ2000 season.
Source for additional stats categories
<br>
A number of teams changed coaches during the season and after it ended.