Texas Western starts five

Texas Western — now UTEP — is not a blue blood. Kentucky is Adolph Rupp, the sport’s establishment, all-white and favored. On March 19, 1966, Don Haskins starts five Black players in the NCAA championship. Nobody of note has done that in a final. Texas Western wins 72-65.

Southern programs that had delayed integration find the delay more expensive. Recruits notice. The game that had been sold as a gentleman’s sport has to admit who was being kept off the floor.

Glory Road is the movie. The box score is simpler: a final, a starting five, a result that made the next roster meeting harder to lie through.