| Gender: | Men's |
| Year: | 2023 |
| Division: | III |
| Teams: | 64 |
| Finalfourarena: | Allen County War Memorial Coliseum |
| Finalfourcity: | Fort Wayne, Indiana |
| Champions: | Christopher Newport |
| Titlecount: | 1st |
| Champgamecount: | 1st |
| Champffcount: | 3rd |
| Runnerup: | Mount Union |
| Gamecount: | 1st |
| Runnerffcount: | 1st |
| Semifinal1: | UW–Whitewater |
| Finalfourcount: | 6th |
| Semifinal2: | Swarthmore |
| Finalfourcount2: | 2nd |
| Coach: | John Krikorian |
| Coachcount: | 1st |
| Mop: | Trey Barber |
| Mopteam: | Christopher Newport |
The 2023 NCAA Division III men's basketball tournament was a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division III college basketball in the United States. Featuring sixty-four teams, it was played in March 2023, following the 2022–23 season, concluding with the championship game on March 18, 2023.
The national semifinal and championship rounds were held at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Christopher Newport won their first national championship, beating Mount Union 74–72 on a buzzer-beating layup by Trey Barber.
First and second round games were played at campus sites on March 3 and March 4.
On the basis of team strength and geography, these locations were chosen to host first and second round games in the 2023 tournament:
Third and fourth round games were played at campus sites on March 10 and March 11.
At the conclusion of the second round, the NCAA announced the following locations would host third and fourth round games.
The National Semifinals and Championship were played on March 16 and March 18.
Fort Wayne hosted the Final Four for the third time, having previously hosted in 2019 and 2022. Fort Wayne was also scheduled to host the Final Four in 2020 and 2021, before those editions of the tournament were canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.
A total of sixty-four bids were available for the tournament: 44 automatic bids—awarded to the champions of the forty-three NCAA-recognized Division III conference tournaments—and 20 at-large bids.
While this was the first season for the newly established Collegiate Conference of the South, its conference tournament champion was not eligible for an automatic bid until the 2025 tournament.[1]
This was also the final year that the Colonial States Athletic Conference and New England Collegiate Conference received bids; the members of the CSAC merged into the United East Conference ahead of the 2023–24 season, consolidating its bid into the UEC's as part of the process.[2] Meanwhile, after steady losses of membership in recent years, the four remaining members of the NECC joined other conferences for 2023–24 and beyond.
The following 44 teams were automatic qualifiers for the 2023 NCAA field by virtue of winning their conference's automatic bid (except for the UAA, whose regular-season champion received the automatic bid).[3]
| Automatic bids | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conference | Team | Record (Conf.) | Appearance | Last bid | |||
| Allegheny Mountain | La Roche | 20–7 (13–1) | 4th | 2020 | |||
| American Rivers | Coe | 16–12 (7–9) | 3rd | 1976 | |||
| American Southwest | East Texas Baptist | 23–5 (14–4) | 2nd | 2015 | |||
| Atlantic East | Marymount | 17–10 (10–2) | 2nd | 2000 | |||
| Centennial | Swarthmore | 24–3 (16–2) | 6th | 2022 | |||
| CUNYAC | Baruch | 22–5 (12–2) | 7th | 2022 | |||
| Coast to Coast | Christopher Newport | 24–3 (5–0) | 26th | 2022 | |||
| CCIW | North Park | 22–5 (13–3) | 10th | 1990 | |||
| Colonial States | Wilson | 19–8 (11–3) | 2nd | 2022 | |||
| Commonwealth Coast | Nichols | 23–5 (16–2) | 6th | 2022 | |||
| Empire 8 | St. John Fisher | 21–7 (14–4) | 18th | 2020 | |||
| Great Northeast | Albertus Magnus | 19–9 (14–4) | 8th | 2019 | |||
| Heartland | Anderson (IN) | 18–9 (14–4) | 2nd | 2010 | |||
| Landmark | Scranton | 20–7 (10–4) | 29th | 2017 | |||
| Liberty | St. Lawrence | 19–7 (13–5) | 14th | 2017 | |||
| Little East | Keene State | 26–1 (16–0) | 8th | 2022 | |||
| MAC Commonwealth | Widener | 19–8 (11–5) | 17th | 2009 | |||
| MAC Freedom | Arcadia | 15–11 (9–7) | 2nd | 2019 | |||
| MASCAC | Worcester State | 22–5 (12–0) | 3rd | 1994 | |||
| Michigan | Hope | 19–9 (10–4) | 29th | 2022 | |||
| Midwest | Illinois College | 25–2 (15–1) | 2nd | 2003 | |||
| Minnesota | Carleton | 24–3 (17–3) | 3rd | 2010 | |||
| NECC | Mitchell | 23–4 (6–0) | 4th | 2022 | |||
| NESCAC | Hamilton | 19–8 (7–3) | 12th | 2019 | |||
| NEWMAC | Babson | 19–8 (10–4) | 12th | 2022 | |||
| New Jersey | Rowan | 22–5 (16–2) | 15th | 2022 | |||
| North Atlantic | SUNY Delhi | 20–8 (10–4) | 1st | Never | |||
| North Coast | Wabash | 21–7 (11–5) | 7th | 2022 | |||
| Northern Athletics | St. Norbert | 19–7 (14–3) | 10th | 2020 | |||
| Northwest | Whitworth | 18–9 (11–5) | 16th | 2022 | |||
| Ohio | Mount Union | 25–2 (16–2) | 5th | 2022 | |||
| Old Dominion | Randolph–Macon | 27–1 (16–0) | 19th | 2022 | |||
| Presidents' | Chatham | 17–11 (13–7) | 2nd | 2019 | |||
| Skyline | Farmingdale State | 21–7 (13–3) | 7th | 2019 | |||
| Southern | Sewanee | 19–9 (9–5) | 6th | 2019 | |||
| SCIAC | Cal Lutheran | 13–13 (8–8) | 5th | 2001 | |||
| SCAC | Schreiner | 15–13 (6–10) | 2nd | 2018 | |||
| SLIAC | Fontbonne | 16–11 (10–4) | 5th | 2009 | |||
| SUNYAC | Oswego State | 25–2 (17–1) | 8th | 2022 | |||
| United East | Lancaster Bible | 20–7 (15–1) | 3rd | 2018 | |||
| UAA | Case Western Reserve | 21–3 (11–3) | 2nd | 2022 | |||
| Upper Midwest | Bethany Lutheran | 23–4 (12–2) | 3rd | 2020 | |||
| USA South | North Carolina Wesleyan | 23–4 (13–1) | 6th | 2011 | |||
| Wisconsin | UW–Whitewater | 21–7 (9–5) | 22nd | 2017 | |||
The following 20 teams were awarded qualification for the tournament field by the NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Committee. The committee evaluated teams on the basis of their win–loss percentage, strength of schedule, head-to-head results, results against common opponents, and results against teams included in the NCAA's final regional rankings.[4]
| At-large bids | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conference | Team | Record (Conf.) | Appearance | Last bid | |||
| UAA | Emory | 17–8 (8–6) | 11th | 2022 | |||
| Old Dominion | Hampden–Sydney | 21–6 (14–2) | 15th | 2013 | |||
| Ohio | John Carroll | 22–4 (16–2) | 16th | 2018 | |||
| Centennial | Johns Hopkins | 23–4 (16–2) | 14th | 2022 | |||
| American Southwest | Mary Hardin–Baylor | 21–5 (16–2) | 8th | 2022 | |||
| Coast to Coast | Mary Washington | 19–8 (4–2) | 3rd | 2014 | |||
| NESCAC | Middlebury | 19–5 (7–3) | 12th | 2020 | |||
| New Jersey | Montclair State | 22–5 (15–3) | 7th | 2003 | |||
| UAA | NYU | 18–7 (7–7) | 11th | 2016 | |||
| SCIAC | Pomona–Pitzer | 20–6 (15–1) | 15th | 2022 | |||
| UAA | Rochester | 16–9 (6–8) | 18th | 2022 | |||
| Great Northeast | St. Joseph (CT) | 27–1 (18–0) | 3rd | 2022 | |||
| SCAC | St. Thomas (TX) | 23–3 (16–0) | 1st | Never | |||
| New Jersey | Stockton | 22–5 (15–3) | 18th | 2022 | |||
| NESCAC | Tufts | 19–7 (6–4) | 7th | 2020 | |||
| Empire 8 | Utica | 22–4 (17–1) | 2nd | 2006 | |||
| Wisconsin | UW–Oshkosh | 21–6 (13–1) | 12th | 2022 | |||
| UAA | Washington–St. Louis | 19–6 (10–4) | 24th | 2022 | |||
| CCIW | Wheaton (IL) | 22–4 (14–2) | 13th | 2022 | |||
| NESCAC | Williams | 22–4 (7–3) | 19th | 2022 | |||
* – Denotes overtime period
| Conference | Record | Win % | R64 | R32 | S16 | E8 | F4 | CG | NC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coast to Coast | 7–1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| Ohio | 6–2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Wisconsin | 7–2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||
| Centennial | 6–2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||
| Commonwealth Coast | 3–1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| SUNYAC | 3–1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| CCIW | 5–2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | ||||
| Little East | 2–1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| American Southwest | 3–2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Old Dominion | 3–2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| New Jersey | 4–3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | |||||
| Great Northeast | 2–2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| NESCAC | 4–4 | 4 | 4 | ||||||
| Empire 8 | 2–2 | 2 | 2 | ||||||
| Landmark | 1–1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| Michigan | 1–1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| Northern Athletics | 1–1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| United East | 1–1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| UAA | 2–5 | 5 | 2 | ||||||
| Southern Collegiate | 0–2 | 2 | |||||||
| SCIAC | 0–2 | 2 | |||||||