The 1941 NAIA basketball tournament was held in March at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The 5th annual NAIA basketball tournament featured 32 teams playing in a single-elimination format.[1]
The third time was the charm for the San Diego State Aztecs. After losing the previous two years to Southwestern College and Tarkio College, the Aztecs finally won beating Murray State, 36–34.
It also was the first time that the tournament MVP was awarded to a player whose team did not win the championship, or make the NAIA Final Four (Charles Thomas played for Northwestern State which lost in the second round to Texas Wesleyan. San Diego State was the first team to make it to the championship game three times.
Many of the records set by the 1941 tournament have been broken, and many of the awards were established much later: