UTEP honors Texas Western’s historic NCAA title 50 years later

EL PASO, Texas — Willie Worsley says he doesn’t talk to his high school players in New York about being on the 1966 Texas Western team, which had the first all-black starting lineup in an NCAA basketball championship game and beat all-white Kentucky for the title.

Yet he still got a text Saturday from one of them who saw him on TV celebrating the 50th anniversary of a 72-65 victory that is largely credited with ending segregation in athletics at universities across the South.

The historic moment was marked by numerous video tributes, including one from President Obama, and culminated in the school now known as Texas-El Paso, or UTEP, beating Conference USA opponent Western Kentucky 93-89 in overtime in a rare sellout.

The current players wore throwback Texas Western jerseys — and clearly understood the significance of the game even though their only hope to make the NCAA Tournament this season is winning the conference tournament.

Miami Heat President Pat Riley, who played for Kentucky in the stunning upset March 19, 1966, in College Park, Md., was among those who gave video tributes.

Hall of Fame coach Don Haskins, who used only his seven black players against Kentucky but never said race was the reason, died in 2008.

UTEP head coach Tim Floyd was an assistant under Haskins when the Miners were frequent NCAA Tournament qualifiers in the 1980s.