.jpg) | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Date | March 15, 1963 | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Venue | Jenison Fieldhouse, East Lansing, Michigan | ||||||||||||
| Referees | Philip Fox, John Stevens | ||||||||||||
| Attendance | 12,143 | ||||||||||||
The Game of Change was a college basketball game played between the Loyola Ramblers and the Mississippi State Bulldogs on March 15, 1963, during the second round of the 1963 NCAA University Division basketball tournament, at Jenison Fieldhouse in East Lansing, Michigan. Taking place in the midst of the American civil rights movement, the game between the racially integrated Loyola team and the all-white Mississippi State team is remembered as a milestone in the desegregation of college basketball.
In an era when teams typically played no more than two black players at a time, Loyola had four black starters. Despite regularly facing racism on the road, Loyola finished the 1962–63 regular season with a dominant 24–2 record. Mississippi State came into the postseason with their fourth Southeastern Conference (SEC) title in five years; however, due to an unwritten law that Mississippi teams would never play against black players, they had never before participated in the NCAA tournament. When university president Dean W. Colvard announced that he would send the team to the tournament, several state officials objected and attempted to restrain the team in the state. Employing a plan involving decoy players, the Bulldogs avoided being served an injunction as they took a charter plane to Michigan the day before the game.
Loyola had advanced to the second round after beating Tennessee Tech by 69 points, the largest margin of victory in tournament history, while Mississippi State had received a first round bye. The regional semifinal game was preceded by a handshake between Jerry Harkness, a black Loyola player, and Joe Dan Gold, a white Mississippi State player. Loyola won the game 61–51 and would ultimately win the entire NCAA tournament with a victory over Cincinnati in the championship game.