Record: 28-1

Coach: Don Haskins

Best players: G Bobby Joe Hill (15.0 ppg), F David Lattin (14.0 ppg)

During the regular season: Won their first 23 games, soaring as high as No. 2 nationally. They lost only at Seattle in their final regular-season game.

NCAA history: Claimed the only NCAA men’s Division I title in Texas history after upsetting Kentucky in the final. But to get there, the Miners, now UTEP, needed overtime victories in two earlier tournament games in Lubbock, beating Cincinnati in overtime and Kansas in double overtime.

What makes them special: The sociological ramifications of their victory still resonate today. The Miners started five African-American players against an all-white Kentucky team. The Texas Western players also have been immortalized in their own movie and have been inducted as a team into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Record: 24-8

Coach: Bill Henderson

Best players: F Jack Robinson, G Don Heathington.

During the regular season: After a pedestrian 7-4 start, the Bears caught fire and cruised to their third SWC championship. They won 12 of their last 13 regular season games in a run marred only by a 32-28 loss at Texas in their next-to-last game before the tournament.

NCAA history: The Bears beat Washington and then Kansas State in the national semifinals to advance to the national championship game at New York City. Kentucky’s “Fabulous Five,” coached by legendary Hall of Famer Adolph Rupp, cruised to a 58-42 victory in the final. Baylor had no starter taller than 6-3 and struggled against 6-9 Kentucky center Alex Groza. Bill Johnson led Baylor with 10 points in the title game.

What makes them special: Robinson, a two-time All-American who earned a gold medal at the 1948 Olympics and was an ordained minister, and three-time All-SWC player Heathington were two of the greatest players in Baylor history. Henderson, who inherited a team that was 0-17 in 1944-45, won three SWC titles in the next six seasons and made Final Four trips in 1948 and 1950.