2019 NCAA Division II men's basketball tournament explained

Division:	II
Year:	2019
Gender:	men's
Teams:	64
Finalfourcity:	Ford Center Evansville, Indiana
Champions:	Northwest Missouri State Bearcats
Titlecount:	2nd
Runnerup:	Point Loma Sea Lions
Gamecount:	1st
Finalfourcount:	1st
Finalfourcount2:	4th
Coach:	Ben McCollum
Coachcount:	2nd
Mop:	Trevor Hudgins
Mopteam:	Northwest Missouri State

The 2019 NCAA Division II men's basketball tournament was the 63rd annual single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division II college basketball in the United States. Featuring sixty-four teams, it began on March 16 and concluded with the championship game on March 30.

The eight regional winners met at Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana for the Elite Eight, Final Four, and championship rounds. The tournament concluded with Northwest Missouri State winning its 2nd national title completing a 38-0 season.^[1]

Qualification

A total of 64 bids are available for each tournament: 24 automatic bids (awarded to the champions of the twenty-two Division II conferences) and 40 at-large bids.

The sixty-four bids are allocated evenly among the eight NCAA-designated regions (Atlantic, Central, East, Midwest, South, South Central, Southeast, and West), each of which contains three of the twenty-four Division II conferences that sponsor men's basketball. Each region consists of three automatic qualifiers (the teams who won their respective conference tournaments) and five at-large bids (which are awarded regardless of conference affiliation).

Seven teams qualified for their first NCAA Division II tournament in 2019: Concordia-Irvine, Daemen, Emmanuel, Molloy, Notre Dame (Ohio), Nova Southeastern, and Walsh. Six of these teams lost their first round game, with Nova Southeastern not only hosting the South Regional Tournament, but winning it, as well, advancing to the Elite Eight, before losing to St. Anselm.