The 1963 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship and the obstacles faced on the team's road
to victory in a racially segregated country put Loyola in the national spotlight. Before the championship, there was a gentlemen's agreement among college teams limiting how many
black players could play during a game. In 1961, Loyola head coach George Ireland broke the
gentleman's agreement by fielding four black players at every game. He made history that year at a game against Wyoming, with Loyola being the first Division I team ever to
field five black players in competition.After winning Round 1 of the national championship tournament on March 11,
1963 against Tennessee Tech, Loyola Ramblers were scheduled to play Round 2 against Mississippi State, which practiced racial segregation. Mississippi Governor Ross R. Barnett banned the
Mississippi school from traveling to the tournament to play against Loyola's black players. Sending a decoy team to divert state
police, the Mississippi team successfully sneaked out of the state to play the Ramblers. Loyola won and went on to beat Illinois in its
regional final and Duke in the national semifinals. At the NCAA
Final, newspapers reported that the Ramblers didn't have a chance against Cincinnati, the two-time defending national champions. In one of the closest games in the season,
Loyola became the first and only team in Chicago, and in the state of Illinois, to win the NCAA Men's Division
I Basketball Championship.