College Basketball: The Miners' Major Upset

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Coach Don Raskins of Texas West ern College was reminiscing before the finals of the N.C.A.A. championship in which his Miners would face the na tion's top-ranked Kentucky Wildcats. Raskins used to play under Oklahoma State's legendary Hank Iba, and "one night after a game, I fell asleep listening to him talk about stopping the fast break. He hit me with an eraser. If I missed anything then, it'll surely show up here." Haskins, it turned out, did not miss much. While he yelled encouragement from the sidelines, Western's all-Negro five effectively buried Kentucky's fast break with pinpoint control of their own backboard, inspired hustling and just plain scrappy play. The final score: 72-65.

For the Miners, it had been a long haul. Their impressive 27-1 season record had virtually demanded at least the No. 3 rank in the nation. Unconvinced outsiders claimed that the team had not really faced tough competition. Kentucky was certainly that. Coached by Old Master Adolph Rupp, the Wildcats were an impeccable, diligently honed unit. But the Miners, as one opposing coach observed, "don't let you play the way you want to." And they didn't let Kentucky. From the opening jump-off between Miner David Lattin and Wildcat Thad Jaracz, they had Kentucky off balance and off the goal. Midway through the first half, when Bobby Joe Hill, 21, Texas Western's standout guard, cleanly stole the ball twice in a row at midcourt, the Wildcats went into a reel that they never quite pulled out of. With a defense that strangled Kentucky in close and on the outside, Texas Western just kept pulling away by leaps and bounds until the final horn crowned them the national champions.

At the National Invitation Tournament in Manhattan, the route to the top was more predictable. After edging Army, top-seeded Brigham Young University found itself in the final with the very upsetting Violets of New York University. N.Y.U. had been invited almost as an afterthought and had gratefully beaten every team it faced. But the streak could not go all the way, even when Brigham Young's All-America Dick Nemelka got sidelined by foul trouble. Forward Gary Hill filled the gap left by Nemelka by scoring 21 points, 13 more than his season average. The whole Brigham Young team played such thoughtful run-and-shoot basketball that, after its 97-84 win, Coach Stan Watts gleefully added two words to the frequently used description of the Cougars' style, making it "wild and woolly-and calculated."