When Texas Western College defeated the University of Kentucky to win the NCAA Basketball Championship in 1966, the Miners weren’t thinking about being the first team to win the national title with five black players in the starting lineup. The fact that the victory would be named one of the NCAA’s Top 25 Defining Moments 40 years later hadn’t yet entered the equation.

Like most teenagers who fulfill their dreams, the Texas Western (now the University of Texas at El Paso) players were caught up in the moment and failed to recognize the social significance of their victory until years later.

"We didn’t really know what it meant right then. We were just trying to win," said David Lattin, who averaged 14 points and 8.6 rebounds per game during the 1965-66 season. "When you’re concentrating on winning and just playing basketball, you really don’t have the time to think about politics. Forty years later, understanding how important that game was is a wonderful feeling for me."

Lattin and his teammates, however, were thinking about a pregame meeting they had with coach Don Haskins in Lattin’s hotel room during which Haskins told his seven black players that they would be the only ones to take the court that night. None of Texas Western’s white players, including defensive specialist Jerry Armstrong, would see any minutes.

"Coach Haskins told us that (Kentucky) coach (Adolph) Rupp had said in a press conference before the game that five black players couldn’t defeat five white players. coach Haskins decided only the African-American players would play that night," Lattin said.

After Haskins told his players about Rupp’s statement — and that only the seven players would see action —-he left the room.

"He didn’t do any coaching that night. Whenever we called for a timeout or a substitution, he just sat there and didn’t say anything," Lattin said.

Kentucky entered the championship game as overwhelming favorites against the upstart Miners. The Wildcats had the legendary Rupp pacing the sidelines and four national titles to their name.

"It was a tremendous upset because Kentucky was the odds-on favorite. At the time, I really didn’t think much about the historical significance of the game," said C.M. Newton, who played basketball at Kentucky and later served as the school’s director of athletics from 1989 to 2000. "Kentucky was an elite program at the time, and Texas Western was an up-and-comer. I thought Texas Western was a heck of a team, and they deserved to win the game."

Newton, who went on to hire the first African-American men’s and women’s basketball coaches in Kentucky history, doesn’t believe Rupp is portrayed accurately when the 1966 championship game is recounted, however.

"I think that (racist) tag was put on Coach Rupp, but I never believed he was one," Newton said. "I know he wasn’t a racist. That was just part of the mystique that came along with it."

Newton agrees that the significance of Texas Western’s victory has grown with time.

"A lot of the historical significance has been added with events that happened after the game," Newton said. "Things changed dramatically in the South with integration in the late 1960s. If you evaluate one of the major events that happened in college basketball, this game was one of them."

Rich Clarkson, who operates NCAA Photos and has shot more than 50 Final Fours, agreed that the game’s significance has blossomed since he covered it from the sideline for Sports Illustrated.

"It wasn’t a big, overwhelming event until years later when people looked back and said it was the sports equivalent of the Board of Education decision," Clarkson said. "The racial connotations and overtones weren’t really played out all that much at the time, but I still think it was one of the most notable games I ever covered."

While Lattin and the Miners didn’t focus on the racial disparity in the starting lineups, they were committed to doing everything within their power to keep Kentucky from its fifth national title.

"We had to win. We couldn’t come away a loser," Lattin said. "Winning changes everything."

It was in the early seconds of the game that Lattin set the tone for the historic victory with a powerful dunk over Kentucky’s Pat Riley.

"There were some other things I tried to do besides the dunk. I tried to block every shot and went after them from the first jump ball. That was something I hadn’t done all year," Lattin said.

Riley, who has gone on to become one of the most successful head coaches in National Basketball Association history, acknowledged that the players didn’t realize the significance of the game until later.

"We were just trying to win an NCAA championship," Riley said in an interview with the Palm Beach Post. "I think most athletes in the 1960s were back in this little fishbowl. We weren’t paying attention to all the