The NCAA All-Stars won the competition convincingly, and so Pete Newell was named the team's head coach, with Warren Womble as his assistant.

The trials came at a time when the AAU and NCAA were wrestling for control of USA Basketball, and the make-up of the team represented that uneasy truce, as the team was made up of seven collegiate stars, four AAU players, and one representative of the US Armed Forces (guard Adrian Smith).

This compromise meant that many top college players were left off the team, including Ohio State's John Havlicek and Providence guard Lenny Wilkens.

[2] The team went 8–0 in the Olympic basketball tournament,[3] held in Rome, averaging 101.9 points per game and holding their opponents to 59.5.

Nine members of the squad went on to play in the NBA and four players from the team – Robertson, Lucas, West and Walt Bellamy – have individually been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, as have head coach Pete Newell and Dutch Lonborg, who was on Newell's staff as team manager.