Haskins started five black players for the first time in NCAA Championship history.

The 2006 film Glory Road is based on the story of the 1966 Texas Western team.

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.

[3] Clem Haskins and Dwight Smith became the first black athletes to integrate the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers basketball program in the Fall of 1963.

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.