Pat Riley
The University of Kentucky has reportedly ended negotiations to play a 2016 game against UTEP, which Miners coach Tim Floyd had intended to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the national championship matchup between UK and the school formerly known as Texas Western.
Floyd, who originally announced the meeting as a possibility in October 2013, told NBC affiliate KTSM on Wednesday that UK “just backed out.”
Neither school had yet to make an official announcement adding it to their schedules.
It was in the original game, also played at Maryland, that Texas Western started five black players for the first time in NCAA championship history and beat an all-white UK lineup coached by Adolph Rupp. The 2006 film “Glory Road” brought the story of coach Don Haskins’ Texas Western team back to the forefront.
