Utah-UTEP face-off reminiscent of 1966 NCAA game

Ray Giacoletti doesn't remember the Utah-Texas Western game in March of 1966. After all, he was just three years old when the Utes and Miners met in the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament at College Park, Maryland.

In fact, the Ute basketball coach didn't even know anything about the game until told about it Tuesday morning before he and his team left for Tucson, where they'll play the Miners in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since that 1966 contest.

The 27-5 Utes and 27-7 Miners meet Thursday at 1:15 p.m. in a first-round contest of the Austin Regional at the McKale Center. The winner moves on to play the Oklahoma-Niagara winner Saturday.

Giacoletti was aware of the Texas Western team, which made history by beating an all-white Kentucky team in the finals of the tournament with an all-African-American starting lineup. A movie currently in production will tell the story of coach Don Haskins and that 1966 team. But Giacoletti didn't know Utah had played them that year.

The Miners defeated the Utes 85-78, before upsetting Adolph Rupp's Kentucky team in the finals, 72-65.

The Utes, who were also known as the Redskins at the time, had a magical season that came out of nowhere, thanks mostly to the play of undersized center Jerry Chambers, who averaged 28.7 points and 11.6 rebounds per game.

Utah wasn't even picked to finish in the top half of the Western Athletic Conference that year before ending up fourth in the nation (they lost to Duke 79-77 in the consolation game).

After losing preseason games to Cincinnati, North Carolina and Miami on the road, the Utes lost twice to BYU (which went on to win the NIT Championship that year) and to Arizona. But the Utes' 7-3 mark was good enough to win the WAC, giving them the automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.

Back then, the NCAA Tournament was set up a lot differently with conference regular-season winners getting automatic berths in the tournament. Only 22 teams were invited that year with 12 teams playing off to get into the bracket of 16.

Utah was one of 10 teams with a bye to the Sweet 16. At the Western Regional in Los Angeles, the Utes beat Pacific 83-74 behind Chambers' 40 points and advanced to the Final Four with a 70-64 win over Oregon State.

The Miners had to win three games to advance and defeated Cincinnati in overtime and Kansas in double overtime to make it out of the Midwest Regional.