Some championships change a program. A few change a sport. On March 19, 1966, Texas Western College, a small school in El Paso, beat the University of Kentucky for the national championship. The final score was 72–65. The lineup is what made it history: Texas Western started five Black players. Kentucky's roster was entirely white.
The game did not end segregation in college basketball by itself. But it became a powerful symbol of change at a time when much of the South was still resisting integration.
A different kind of program
Texas Western — known today as the University of Texas at El Paso, or UTEP — was not a basketball power. Its coach, Don Haskins, had arrived in 1961 and built his teams around tough defense, discipline and a willingness to recruit talented players wherever he found them, including Black players from northern cities and the South whom many major programs would not consider.
By 1965–66, Haskins had assembled a team that combined speed, strength and defensive intensity. Its core included guards Bobby Joe Hill, Orsten Artis and Willie Worsley, forward Harry Flournoy and center David Lattin. Texas Western lost only one game during the regular season and entered the tournament ranked among the best teams in the country.
Kentucky and Adolph Rupp
Kentucky represented the establishment. Coach Adolph Rupp had already won four national championships and was one of the most successful coaches in the sport's history. His 1965–66 team, nicknamed "Rupp's Runts" because it lacked height, was a skilled, smart, high-scoring group that included future NBA coach Pat Riley and guard Louie Dampier.
Kentucky's roster reflected the Southeastern Conference of the time, which had not yet integrated its basketball teams. The program would not sign its first Black scholarship player until several years later.
The tournament
Texas Western's road to the final was not easy. The Miners survived a double-overtime game against Kansas in the regional final and then beat Utah in the national semifinals. Kentucky beat Duke in its semifinal, in a game many observers expected to decide the championship.
The final was held at Cole Field House at the University of Maryland. Few outside El Paso expected Texas Western to win.
The game
Haskins made a deliberate decision: he would start his five Black players and use only his Black players in the game. He later said the choice was about playing his best players, but he understood the message it would send.
Early in the first half, Bobby Joe Hill made two steals on consecutive possessions and turned both into layups, giving Texas Western momentum and confidence. Lattin set the tone physically inside, and the Miners' defense disrupted Kentucky's normally smooth offense.
Kentucky kept the game close, but Texas Western never surrendered the lead for long. The Miners made their free throws in the closing minutes and won 72–65.
How Haskins coached
It would be easy to remember Texas Western only for what it represented. But the Miners won because they were an excellent basketball team. Haskins was demanding and blunt, and his teams were built on defense. Practices were hard, conditioning was relentless, and players who did not defend did not play.
That approach suited the roster. Texas Western's guards were quick enough to pressure the ball for forty minutes, and its forwards and center were strong enough to control the boards. Against Kentucky, a team that relied on precise passing and outside shooting, that pressure mattered as much as anything else that happened in College Park.
The reaction
The immediate reaction was mixed. Texas Western's players were celebrated in El Paso, but they also received hateful mail and faced suspicion and stereotyping from some in the national press. Several of the players later described how little the significance of the moment was recognized at the time.
Over the following years, its meaning became clearer. Southern programs that had refused to recruit Black players began to change, partly under pressure and partly because they could see what they were missing. Within a few years, integrated rosters became the norm across the major conferences, including the SEC.
Remembering 1966
The story gained renewed attention decades later, especially after the 2006 film Glory Road dramatized the season. Haskins coached at the school for 38 years and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2007, the entire 1966 Texas Western team was inducted into the Hall of Fame as well.
Historians caution against telling the story too simply — integration in college sports was a long process with many pioneers, and change did not happen overnight. But the image of five Black starters winning the national championship against the sport's most famous program remains one of the most important moments in the history of American basketball.
It showed, in the clearest possible way, that talent did not care about the color lines that so many institutions were still trying to defend.
