Customer Reviews

Basketball's Biggest Upset: Texas Western Changed the Sport With Win over Kentucky in 1966

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is not nearly as good as the book "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down" by Frank Fitzpatrick, about the same subject. Ray Sanchez should stick to newspaper articles. He does not do a good job of developing characters or themes, and did not do enough research. There is no bibliography, and most of the book sounds like fan-speak. On the other hand, I am a fan so it is in my library. There are several typos in the book which detracts from it and makes it hard to take seriously. Ray Sanchez was not the reporter who covered the Miners in 1966, but was working for the paper that year and remembers the events personally. This perspective is critical to an understanding of the 1966 Miners, and is why I give the book 3 stars instead of the 2 stars it deserves based on literary merit.

The author of this book obviously knows this subject very well,being that he was a reporter for the El Paso newspaper during the time of the historic NCAA championship game. Mr. Sanchez's writing style does not make for an exciting read. This book is very dry and sticks to dull statistics. It basically is a game by game telling of the season. I knew a little about the Texas Western- Kentucky game before the reading this book, unfortunately I know very little more after reading this book.

I just finished reading the book, "Basketball's Biggest Upset" by Ray Sanchez and I was extremely impressed with the detailed account of how the 1966 Texas Western College Miners really won the NCAA basketball championship.
This is the only account I've read that gives not only the background of each player but a game by game history of that miraculous season that, as the book says, changed the sport forever. It was so unlike the movie, Glory Road, which was more fiction than fact in many places.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and will treasure it forever as the true and wonderful story of the 1966 Miners. I still get chills thinking about it. I give it five stars.

Twelve young men arrived at Texas Western College in 1966, never dreaming that someday they would pull the biggest upset in the history of college basketball and change the sport forever. Texas Western College became known as University of Texas at El Paso in 1967