Back Torneo de la División I de Baloncesto Masculino de la NCAA de 1990 Spanish Torneo di pallacanestro maschile NCAA Division I 1990 Italian
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| Season | 1989–90 | ||||
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| Teams | 64 | ||||
| Finals site | McNichols Sports Arena Denver, Colorado | ||||
| Champions | UNLV Runnin' Rebels (1st title, 1st title game, 3rd Final Four) | ||||
| Runner-up | Duke Blue Devils (4th title game, 8th Final Four) | ||||
| Semifinalists |
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| Winning coach | Jerry Tarkanian (1st title) | ||||
| MOP | Anderson Hunt (UNLV) | ||||
| Attendance | 537,138 | ||||
| Top scorer | Dennis Scott (Georgia Tech) (153 points) | ||||
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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 I men'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 quarterfinals of the West Coast Conference tournament against the Portland Pilots, 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 (the only game in which Loyola Marymount did not score 100 or more points in the tournament) 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. (Gathers was right-handed, but struggled so much with free throws that he tried shooting them left-handed for a time.) 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.