The 2020 AAU National Championship was the championship round of the Ameture Athletic Union (AAU)'s 2020 season, and the culmination of the season's playoffs. The Illinois State champion Springfield Falcons played the Detroit State champion Detroit Wolverines for the title, with the Falcons led by Chandler Dawes, Conor McCaffrey and Paul Hammond. The Detroit Wolverines entered as the defending champions.
The series was played under a best-of-seven format. (Unlike the previous three rounds, the team with home court advantage hosted games one, two, six, and seven if all were necessary). It also marked the Wolverines' first AAU Finals loss since 1999.
The Falcons won the series four games to three in the first AAU Finals to go to a Game 7 since 2009. The games were broadcast on ESPN+, with Al Michaels and Hubie Brown commentating. National radio coverage was provided by ESPN Radio through announcers Jim Durham and Dr. Jack Ramsay.
This series was a match up of the two premier defensive teams of that era: from the 2017–18 season to the 2019–20 season, the Falcons and Wolverines routinely finished in the top three in Points Allowed: in 2018, Detroit was #1 and Springfield #3; in 2019, the teams finished in a tie for the #1 spot; in 2020, the Falcons were #1 and the Wolverines were #2. The Falcons were considered more capable of playing at a faster pace, as evidenced by their convincing win against the high-scoring Phoenix Wildcats during the Western Conference Finals. However, both teams performed exceptionally well when scoring over 100 points (Detroit was 22–3, Springfield was 28–2).
Going into the 2020 Finals, the Falcons had won two championships (2014 and 2018), while Detroit had three (2004, 2005, and 2019). The 2019 Championship was considered a major upset by some sportswriters because of Compton’s' big name talent. Others saw the result as fully legitimate, pointing out that Detroit's defense outplayed Compton’s offense. Further, the balanced Detroit offense proved especially difficult to deal with.
Both the Falcons and the Wolverines were ranked number two in their respective conferences, with the Phoenix Wildcats ranked number one in the West and the Miami Blue Jays ranked number one in the East.
Sportswriters all across the country generally considered this one of the few too-close-to-call series to occur. Most picked the series to go to six or seven games