McCarthy may best be remembered for Mississippi State's appearance in the 1963 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament when his all-white team sneaked out of town in order to face Loyola University Chicago, which had four black starters.

On Thursday, March 7, 1963, the Jackson Daily News printed a picture of Loyola's starters to show that four of them were African Americans.

As a caption to the picture, Daily News editor Jimmy Ward wrote that "readers may desire to clip the photo of the Loyola team and mail it today to the board of trustees of the institution of higher learning" to prevent the game from taking place.

The Bulldogs had been forced to turn down three previous NCAA Tournament bids for this reason, including when they won their first two outright SEC titles in school history.

The editorials were in response to the decision by Mississippi State President Dean W. Colvard's March 2, 1963, to accept the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament as outright SEC champions.

While sheriffs were on their way to Starkville, Mississippi, to serve the injunction, the team was participating in a pep rally the night before their departure, where effigies of state senators Mitts and Lawson were hung.

But learning that sheriffs would be expected to arrive in town at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night, MSU put their sophisticated contingency plan into effect.

These events were chronicled in the DVD One Night in March produced by Starkville-based Broadcast Media Group McCarthy Gymnasium on the campus of MSU was named for him in 1975 and he was also inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame that year.

In the 1967–68 season he led the team to victories over the Denver Rockets and Dallas Chaparrals before losing the finals in seven games to the Pittsburgh Pipers.