1953 NCAA Basketball Tournament

First Round (March 10)

The Palestra, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

East-1 Regional (March 13 and 14)

Reynolds Coliseum, Raleigh, North Carolina

First Round (March 10)

Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, Fort Wayne, Indiana

East-2 Regional (March 12 and 13)

Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois

West-1 Regional (March 12 and 13)

Ahearn Field House, Manhattan, Kansas

First Round (March 10)

Hec Edmundson Pavilion, Seattle, Washington

Stanford Pavilion, Palo Alto, California

West-2 Regional (March 13 and 14)

Oregon State Coliseum, Corvallis, Oregon

March 17 and 18

Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Missouri

For the fourth time, Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium was the host of the National Championship, its first as a full-fledged Final Four site. With the expansion of the field, the number of host venues also expanded, with three of the nine venues being new to the tournament. Both venues in the East-1 region were repeat venues, with Reynolds Coliseum hosting for the third straight year and the Palestra returning to the tournament for the first time since the inaugural year of 1939. In the East-2 region, Chicago Stadium once again hosted the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight. For the first time, the city of Fort Wayne hosted tournament games, at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, home to the Fort Wayne Pistons of the NBA. The West-1 regional had no first-round games, with the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight held at then-Kansas State College and Ahearn Field House. In the West-2 region, Oregon State Coliseum again hosted, with first-round games held at both Hec Edmundson Pavilion and, for the first time, at the Pavilion on the campus of Stanford University, the first games held in California since the 1939 tournament.

This would be the only tournament ever hosted on the Stanford campus, and the last time Chicago Stadium would be used as a venue, with various other sites used around the area since.

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