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1965–66 Texas Western Miners men's basketball team
American college basketball season
American college basketball season
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| year | 1965–66 |
| team | Texas Western Miners |
| sport | Basketball |
| image_size | 250px |
| image | UTEP_1966_basketball.jpg |
| conference | Independent |
| CoachRank | 3 |
| APRank | 3 |
| record | 28–1 |
| head_coach | Don Haskins |
| hc_year | 5th |
| asst_coach1 | Moe Iba |
| ac1_year | 4th |
| stadium | Memorial Gym |
| champion | [NCAA tournament National champions](1966-ncaa-university-division-basketball-tournament) |
| tourney | [National Championship Game](1966-ncaa-university-division-basketball-championship-game) |
| tourney_result | |
| W 72–65 vs. [Kentucky](1965-66-kentucky-wildcats-men-s-basketball-team) |
W 72–65 vs. Kentucky The 1965–66 Texas Western Miners basketball team represented Texas Western College, now the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), led by Hall of Fame head coach Don Haskins. The team won the national championship in 1966, becoming the first team with an all-black starting lineup to do so. The Miners only lost one game, a road loss to Seattle by two points. They won their games by an average of 15.2 points.
The Miners beat Kentucky (an all-white program until 1969) 72–65 in the historic championship game, played on Saturday, March 19, at Cole Field House on the University of Maryland campus in College Park, a suburb of Washington, D.C.
The team was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007 and inspired the book and film Glory Road.
Roster
- Don Haskins (Oklahoma A&M)
- Moe Iba ()
After the championship
The 1965–66 Texas Western basketball team faced many issues due to racism. For example, when they won the championship no one brought out a ladder for them to cut down the net. Nevil Shed had to hoist up Willie Worsley so he could do the honors. Also, they were not invited on The Ed Sullivan Show, which was customary for the NCAA Champions. Texas Western's (UTEP's) winning the basketball national championship helped promote the desegregation of athletics in the Southeastern Conference which had its first black basketball player in 1967.
As for their professional outlooks following this season, only one of the players from this team (David Lattin) would end up playing in the NBA, being selected as a Top 10 pick by the San Francisco Warriors in the 1967 NBA draft. After spending a year in San Francisco, he would be called up by the Phoenix Suns in the 1968 NBA expansion draft and play a season with them before spending the rest of his professional career in the early 1970s in the rivaling upstart American Basketball Association, playing his final years with the Pittsburgh Condors and Memphis Tams before retiring in 1973. Another player named Willie Worsley would later join the ABA, though he would play for the New York Nets in only the second season of the ABA's existence before retiring altogether. A couple of other players in Willie Cager and Nevil Shed would also get drafted in the NBA as well, though unlike with Lattin, neither would play in the NBA properly. Finally, the rest of the roster would not even touch the NBA or the ABA themselves following this season onward.
Schedule
|- !colspan=9 style=|Regular Season |- !colspan=12 style="background:#;"| NCAA Tournament
References
References
- . (November 16, 2009). ["Texas Western defeats Kentucky in NCAA final"](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/texas-western-defeats-kentucky-in-ncaa-finals). *[[History.com]]*.
- (March 20, 1966). "Texas Western shocks Kentucky in final". Eugene Register-Guard.
- (March 20, 1966). "Hill and friends flummox favored Kentucky by 72-65". Spokesman-Review.
- Buttram, Bill. (March 21, 1966). "Texas Western's 'game' beats Kentucky". Free Lance-Star.
- "Hall Of Famers – 1966 Texas Western".
- Wetzel, Dan. "The Long and Winding road". Yahoo Sports.
- Eagen, Matt. "Breaking the Barrier". The Courant.
- [http://utepathletics.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/archive/041607aah.html 1965–66 Statistics and Results] {{webarchive. link. (2009-03-26 , [[University of Texas at El Paso]], retrieved 2009-07-09)
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