The team won the national championship in 1966, becoming the first team with an all-black starting lineup to do so. But the Miner defense held the Golden Hurricane scoreless for almost five minutes and that led to a 38-25 TWC halftime lead. Bobby Joe Hill and David Lattin each had 18 points and Willie Cager added 10. The Miners led by as many as seven points in the first half but the Rams trimmed that lead to two, 43-41, at the half. But it was on the boards that the Miners truly dominated this game. Changing the day will navigate the page to that given day in history. I was simply playing the best players on the team, and they happened to be Black.. in 1977, the old coach lamented to visitors about the loss. of American sports. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan and Matt Mullen. universities. Texas Western romped past the University of South Dakota in the opening round of the Mississippi Valley Cage Classic Tuesday night, Dec. 21, in Rockland, Ill. Hill led the Miners in scoring with 15 points. We wanted to carry that trophy out of there," he said. Star of the West. Texas Westerns coach Don Haskins, who recruited black players, made sure it didnt happen. probably never crossed Don's mind," said his assistant, Moe Iba. The team was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007 Although the uprising was part of a larger one . 1965-66 Texas Western Miners men's basketball team In the 1966-67 season, Texas Western improved to 15-0 and brought the crowd to its feet over and over with the big win over rival NMSU. The Miners roster consisted of seven African-Americans. The Miners tried to even things with shot after shot down the stretch. The other The Miners led by five with 1:17 to go in regulation but Kansas scrambled back to tie it 69-69 and force overtime. After the NCAA championship, Haskins received more than 40,000 pieces of hate mail for starting five Black players, he latertold theL.A. Times. They were known as Rupp's runts. But even as the jubilant Miners celebrated a new set of myths was emerging. "'I wish I could have done one thing and I didnt do it. We strive for accuracy and fairness. Riley had never heard of Texas Western, so he was shocked when the Wildcats lost. Lattin isn'ttalking about a team of white Kentucky players. The Miners got off to a slow start and actually trailed 11-8 six minutes into the game. There wereno racial slurs from Kentucky players. Still, Rupp held out. This Day In 1966: Texas Western, featuring the first all-black starting lineup, beats Adolph Rupps Kentucky team to win NCAA title. blacks continued to start for the Miners. Rupp's lingering bitterness helped paint the Miners as urban street thugs, Unusual for its time, the NCAA broadcast the game in black and white on TV, as the New York Times reports. The Miners, now 23-1, will travel Sunday to Wichita, Kan., where they will open the NCAA Tournament against Oklahoma City University on Monday. 1966: TWC win 14th straight, sweep West Texas state. who played for Haskins at Texas Western. Fifty years ago, Texas Western started . Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. What am I going to Their The 196566 Texas Western basketball team faced many issues due to racism. Informed by Haskins that Rupp had vowed five Their tenacity paid off, and Texas Western won the game 72 - 65. A crowd of 7,800, featuring many Miner fans, watched the game in the Lubbock Municipal Auditorium. The year after winning the title, the school became the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP). On this date in 1966, Texas Western (now called UTEP) becomes the first team to start 5 African-Americans in the NCAA Tournament title game, beating a Kentucky team (72-65) that included Pat Riley. But before Haskins arrived in El Paso for the 1961season, the college had already been recruiting Black players. If basketball ever took a turn, that was it," said Nolan Richardson, the Arkansas coach Conflict between the Plains Indians and the Spanish began before other European and Anglo-American settlers were encouragedfirst by Spain and then by the newly Independent Mexican governmentto colonize Texas in order to provide a protective-settlement . Nor, for that matter, was UCLA the only time in John. quickly. Bobby Joe Hill led the Miners with 20 points. Four (Duke and Utah were the others)," said Texas Western guard Willie They were the only Miners to score in double figures. By then, even deep-South SEC schools like Auburn and President Lincoln's 75,000 volunteers. In fact, Bobby Joe Hill led the Miners offensively with 19 points. Texas Western smothered New Mexico State early and raced away for an easy 73-56 win over the Aggies on Wednesday night, March 2, 1966, in Las Cruces. Texas Western's Streak Is Over : NPR This guy could jump out of the gym. It was as if history demanded that for change finally to occur, a great hero David Lattin was a lot bigger than anybody, and the guards for Texas Western were really good. "The legend of Texas Western: journalism and the epic sports spectacle that wasnt. Game Writeup - by Gordon S. White, Jr.,New York Times. David Lattin and Willie Worsley made free throws and Hill made a driving layup. The Miners, ranked fourth in the nation, improved to 17-0 on the season with Thursday's win. After the NCAA title in 1966,the nation watched the players goto the White House and meet Lyndon B. Johnson. memory of that game to his grave," wrote his biographer, Russell Rice. Willie Worsley had 12 points, Orsten Artis had 11, Harry Flournoy had 10 points, David Lattin had nine before fouling out and Jerry Armstrong also had nine points. mid-1970s, four of Kentucky's five starters, including Dampier and Riley, had not earned degrees. "You know what I was thinking about? The win improved the Miner record to 24-1 and propelled them into the NCAA Midwest Regional Friday night, March 11 against the University of Cincinnati in Lubbock. Kentucky defeated Auburn 115-78 Saturday to improve to 14-0. But it was not enough for the Jayhawks. Hill led the Miners with 18 points. The movie Glory Road was so loose with facts that it trivializes the long road that it took to integrate the game and turns it into a sort of a fairy tale, Chicago Sun Times columnist Ron Rapoport told NPR in 2006. Texas-Indian wars - Wikipedia The Miners improved to 22-0 with two regular season games remaining one at New Mexico State, one at Seattle with a big second half run in front of a sellout crowd of 5,200 in Memorial Gym. "And I guess there is a certain justice to that. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Texas Western used its smothering defense, fierce rebounding and a balanced scoring attack to dismantle Iowa. Bobby Joe Hill, the Miner point guard, picked up three fouls early and had to sit for 13 minutes in the first half. Bobby Joe Hill and Harry Flournoy added 12 points each, and Flournoy led the Miners with 14 rebounds. For several years Kentucky president John W. The Miners led almost the entire game, leading by seven points twice in the first half and leading by as many as six in the second half. Don Haskins, 78; basketball coach was first to win NCAA title with 5 Still, Haskins took it a step further than schools in the south were doing and heplayed his Black players. All Rights Reserved. Kentucky," wrote the Sun's James H. Jackson. Texas Western's five black starters didn't catch the eyes of the country until they went up against an all-white Adolph Rupp coached Kentucky team in the national championship. I wish at that time we could haveall just embraced each other.'". The Wildcats, whose only previous loss He called the Texas Western players "loose-jointed I know we didnt approach the game thinking about race, and I dont think the Kentucky team approached it as a racial game either., Texas Western player: Don Haskins was prejudiced. Texas Western took an early lead and never relinquished it on its way to a national championship. And those letters from the whites in the south, you can just imagine what they said. 11 important details you might not know about UTEP's historic - NCAA "I had it pretty good," he said. Harry Flournoy had 13 points, 17 rebounds and David Lattin managed 11 points, despite fouling out with 9:26 to play. It had been a year since the voting rights marches from Selma to. basketball at the time, but the ideal foils for Haskins and Texas Western. Texas Western smothered Tulsa defensively on Monday night, Jan. 3, 1966 the day the Miners first moved into the Associated Press national rankings. Texas Revolution - Wikipedia True Story Of Glory Road: Texas Western Shocks Kentucky In 1966 It first signedCharlie Brown in 1956. The Miners shot 50.8 percent from the field and held the Aggies to just 34.1 percent. TWC also led by seven points in the final half but Colorado State refused to go away. New Mexico led Texas Western 37-21 at the half and led by 20 points with 14:03 to play. all-white and another whose starters were entirely black. It made it possible for kids to go to major universities, especially in the deep South, and not just for basketball. And, of course, the Miner defense was in full fury, holding South Dakota to just 23.8 percent shooting. According to Lattin, Haskins heard that Cager was ill many years ago and persuaded a friend to operate on Cager for free. It still matters because race is still prevalent in the American eye.. If we could have just gone over and shook their hands. Trying to win a basketball game.". "`Nigger ball' they used to call it. But, as Geoffrey C. Ward writes in "Unforgivable Blackness," Johnson's unapologetic. How Texas Western's 1966 national championship changed college - NCAA