National championship game | |||||||||||||
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Date | April 4, 1988 | ||||||||||||
Venue | Kemper Arena, Kansas City, Missouri | ||||||||||||
MVP | Danny Manning, Kansas | ||||||||||||
Favorite | Oklahoma by 8 | ||||||||||||
Referees | John Clougherty, Tim Higgins & Ed Hightower | ||||||||||||
Attendance | 16,392 | ||||||||||||
United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||
Network | CBS | ||||||||||||
Announcers | Brent Musburger (play-by-play) Billy Packer (color) | ||||||||||||
The 1988 NCAA Division I men's basketball championship game was the final round of the 1988 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament and determined the national champion for the 1987–88 NCAA Division I men's basketball season The game was played on April 4, 1988, at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, and featured the Southeast Regional Champion, #1-seeded Oklahoma versus the Midwest Regional Champion, #6-seeded Kansas, both from the Big Eight Conference.
The game remains, as of the 2023 Championship game, the last time two teams from the same conference played for the National Championship. Kansas's upset of Oklahoma was the third-biggest point-spread upset in the national title game in NCAA Tournament history. After the win, the 1988 Kansas team was remembered as "Danny and the Miracles" due to Danny Manning's excellence throughout the tournament, including a double-double in the national championship game with 31 points and 18 rebounds.