| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| City | New York City |
| Venue(s) | Madison Square Garden |
| Teams | 6 |
| Final positions | |
| Champions | Temple Owls (1st title) |
| Runner-up | Colorado Buffaloes |
| Semifinalists | |
| Tournament statistics | |
| MVP | Don Shields (Temple) |
The 1938 National Invitation Tournament was the 1938 edition of the annual NCAA basketball competition. It was the inaugural National Invitational Tournament and was won by Temple.
Below is a list of the six teams selected for the tournament.[1]
| Team | Conference | Overall record |
|---|---|---|
| Bradley | Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference | 18–1 |
| Colorado | Mountain States Conference | 14–5 |
| Long Island | Metropolitan New York Conference | 23–4 |
| NYU | Metropolitan New York Conference | 15–6 |
| Oklahoma A&M | Missouri Valley Conference | 24–2 |
| Temple | Eastern Intercollegiate Conference | 20–2 |
Below is the tournament bracket.[1]
| Quarterfinals | Semifinals | Finals | ||||||||||||
| 1 | Oklahoma A&M | 55 | ||||||||||||
| 4 | Temple | 53 | Temple | 56 | ||||||||||
| 5 | Bradley | 40 | Temple | 60 | ||||||||||
| Colorado | 36 | |||||||||||||
| 2 | Colorado | 48 | ||||||||||||
| 3 | NYU | 39 | NYU | 47 | ||||||||||
| 6 | Long Island | 37 | Third place | |||||||||||
| Oklahoma A&M | 37 | |||||||||||||
| NYU | 24 | |||||||||||||