The 1966 NCAA University Division basketball tournament involved 22 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national men's basketball champion of the NCAA University Division, now Division I. It began on March 7 and ended with the championship game on March 19 in College Park, Maryland. A total of 26 games were played, including a third place game in each region and a national third place game.

Third-ranked Texas Western (now UTEP), coached by Don Haskins, won the national title with a 72–65 victory in the final over top-ranked Kentucky, led by head coach Adolph Rupp. Haskins started five black players for the first time in NCAA Championship history. Jerry Chambers of Utah was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

The 2006 film Glory Road is based on the story of the 1966 Texas Western team. Their tournament games against fourth-ranked Kansas and Kentucky are depicted in the film.

The tournament is also significant in that it was the last tournament until 2021, and one of two since the league's official founding, that the Ivy League did not send a representative to the tournament. The league champion, Penn, refused to comply with an NCAA edict that all teams must certify a 1.6 GPA for all student-athletes; the Ivy League and the university did not believe that the NCAA had the power to dictate such things, and as such the team was banned. They would have played Syracuse in the East regional at Blacksburg.^[1]

This was the only NCAA tournament between 1961 and 1982 which did not include UCLA.

Locations

Teams

Bracket

East region

Mideast region

Midwest region

West region

Final Four

National Third Place Game

Regional third place games

Game summaries

The Tournament is most remembered for the all-black starting five of Texas Western defeating an all-white starting five for Kentucky in the championship game.^[3]

Clem Haskins and Dwight Smith became the first black athletes to integrate the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers basketball program in the Fall of 1963.^[4] This put Western Kentucky at the forefront to integrate college basketball in the Southeast.^[5] The Western Kentucky Hilltoppers were 2 points away from defeating Michigan and meeting the University of Kentucky Wildcats in the Mideast regional final. A controversial foul called against Smith during a jump ball put Cazzie Russell on the free throw line for Michigan, where he scored the tying and winning baskets.^[6]