Western Kentucky celebrates clinching the C-USA 2021 East Division title following Saturday’s win against Old Dominion at E.A. Diddle Arena.

When Western Kentucky takes the court at Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, on Thursday for its first game of the Conference USA Tournament, it’ll look to start what it hopes to be a postseason run that includes the tournament title and a long stay in the NCAA Tournament.

It’s what the team hopes will happen, those around the program hope will happen and what the Hilltopper faithful expect with a veteran roster that’s beaten, or at the very least competed with, some of the top programs in the country in recent years.

But it’s also because it’s been done before, half a century ago.

The 1970-71 Western Kentucky men’s basketball team advanced to the only Final Four in program history, and 50 years later, that team is still a sense of pride around the Bowling Green community and has provided a goal for each team after to try to reach.

“I think sometimes when people say that’s the best WKU basketball team of all time, they sell that team short. I think it’s the best WKU team of all time, all sports,” WKU director of athletics Todd Stewart said. “I think to make it to the Final Four in men’s basketball – it’s the only time it’s happened here – that raised the bar pretty high, but that’s great. That shows that it can be done and I believe it can be done for us.”

WKU enters Thursday’s game with an 18-6 record with six in-state players on its roster, including three former Kentucky Mr. Basketball winners – similar to the 1970-71 team that was filled with Kentucky-born stars.

But things were different at that time with the starting lineup head coach John Oldham elected to put on the floor.

Earlier that season, when an injury created an opening in the starting lineup. Oldham moved Rex Bailey into the starting position, creating an all-Black starting five of Bailey, Clarence Glover, Jim McDaniels, Jim Rose and Jerry Dunn – something never done at WKU before, and a move seen as unpopular by many at a southern university at the time. Oldham was called into the office of President Dero Downing because a member of the Board of Regents was worried he would start five Black players.

“He received mail, threats on his life, different type of things. Even was called in by one member of the Board of Regents in regard to him going to start five players of color,” Glover told the Daily News on Nov. 23, the day Oldham died and the same week the 2020-21 season began. “ … When he was called in, and he offered his resignation because he said that he was not starting players because of the color of their skin, he was starting the players he thought he could win with. He told the university that he would resign, but he would not change.”

No resignation was accepted, and the 1970-71 team finished the year with a 24-6 overall record and a 12-2 mark in Ohio Valley Conference play. The Hilltoppers, led by McDaniels’ 29.3 points and 15.1 rebounds per game, were OVC champions and finished the year as the No. 7 team in the AP poll. McDaniels was one of three consensus All-Americans in program history.

The path to the Final Four wasn’t easy for the Hilltoppers, even starting with their first game against Jacksonville. WKU was down 44-30 by the break to the same team that ended their season the year prior. When thinking back on Oldham’s legacy at the time of his death, Glover thought of that halftime.

“Looking back at that, I think about halftime and the weight that was on his shoulders that was needlessly put there because one person wrote, ‘You will never be able to win with five Black players because they don’t have the capacity of intelligence to do so,’ “ Glover said. “I read those. It was different things, but that was one that weighed on my mind later, that he would have to go back to Bowling Green if we lost that first game.

“ … The other coaches may have known this. We did not. He did not place the burden on us. He kept it upon himself. I think that was the integrity he had as a person, as a human being, that he would shoulder that type of burden.”

WKU came back to beat Jacksonville 74-72 in that first game, and next faced Kentucky. The Hilltoppers beat the in-state rival 107-83 in Athens, Ga., to keep the season alive.

Next up was Ohio State, and it took WKU overtime to come away with the 81-78 victory and advance to the Final Four.

That game in Houston was where championship hopes came to a close in double overtime to Villanova, 92-89. John Wooden’s UCLA team claimed the title with a 68-62 victory over Villanova. The Hilltoppers did return to Bowling Green as winners, however, beating Kansas 77-75 in the third-place game.

“It was an all guts performance,” Oldham said after the consolation game, according to a March 28, 1971, article in the Daily News. “But dang it, I would have given anything to get after those rascals from UCLA.”

The results in the tournament – although later vacated due to NCAA sanctions and short of what Oldham and his squad ultimately wanted – with victories over Kentucky, Ohio State and Kansas, are impressive to this day, and it shows – as do other mid-major runs in recent history – that it can be done.

“I think once somebody does something, I think once they break the glass, so to speak, it shows that it can happen,” Stewart said. “For that group to do that, and really come close to winning it all – losing a very close game in the semifinals and then winning the third-place game over Kansas. I mean, how about that? How about an NCAA Tournament when you beat Kentucky, Ohio State and Kansas in the same NCAA Tournament?

“I just think that will always be the team that’s put at the top of the mountain and on a pedestal. And the social aspect of it, too. It was a groundbreaking team. Coach Oldham and that group – so many historic things happening with that team that, to me, make it even more special.”

The 1970-71 team is the only one with a spot on the Hilltoppers’ Final Four banner inside E.A. Diddle Arena, where on Saturday in WKU’s most recent game the team claimed the regular-season Conference USA title with a 60-57 victory over Old Dominion.

It’s something for this year’s team to strive to do, with a run that would start with a 5:30 p.m. game Thursday against UTSA. If the Hilltoppers were to win, they would play in an 11 a.m. semifinal Friday, and the C-USA championship is scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday. The NCAA Tournament, all in Indiana this season, would come next with three wins.

“I don’t really know much about (the Final Four team) personally, but we know what they’ve done on the court and the success they had. That’s definitely the standpoint for us to what we’re looking at and what we want to come back and do and just recreate, if not be better than what they did,” WKU senior guard Josh Anderson said. “They’re the standard. They’re who we’re looking to play like.”

“That’s definitely something to look up to. You want to be up there, if not greater,” WKU senior guard Taveion Hollingsworth said. “We want to make a deep run. We want to first win this tournament, of course, but that’s where our head’s at. Our head’s at to win the next few games and just keep them rolling.”

That 1970-71 WKU team played, and won, on a big stage. It’s something this year’s team has done in the regular season, with wins over programs like Memphis and Alabama in games broadcast on ESPN’s family of networks.

“I didn’t know any of those players personally, but there’s no question back then that put – I know Western Kentucky was on the map – but that put them on a different stage,” WKU head coach Rick Stansbury said. “I think it’s very obvious everyone across the country knows even from that.

“It’s a totally different time from then to now, but I think everyone would say now that Western Kentucky is on a big stage right here, right now. We’re on the national scene, we’re competitive against anybody in the country. I think anybody in the basketball world would know that and say that. As a coach, as a player, hey, we’re not going to win them all. That’s just the way it is. We’re not going to win them all. But I think where our program is – and not just what we feel about it, what people across the country feel about it – that we’re on a national stage and we’re not an easy out for nobody.”

The Hilltoppers haven’t backed down from competition this season, even if WKU didn’t win those games – it suffered a close loss to West Virginia in the Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic and went to Houston to face the current seventh-ranked team in the AP poll on less than a week’s notice. They didn’t back down 50 years ago, either – WKU’s first loss in the 1970-71 season came by two points to second-ranked South Carolina at the ECAC Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden, for example.

Perhaps it’s fitting that the Hilltoppers’ latest loss came in Houston, much like it’s last loss 50 years ago to Villanova, and that in the broadcast of the game at the Fertitta Center on Feb. 25, a segment was dedicated by ESPN analyst Mark Adams to telling stories from Glover about the 1970-71 team – a team revered half a century later.

“I think it’s a little bit like the 1980 hockey team – the Dream Team,” Stewart said. “That was an incredible moment that year when we won the gold medal as a nation and that team’s still talked about today. The impact of the 1980 hockey team carries on today.

“I think the 1971 WKU basketball team, for Western Kentucky fans, has a similar-type impact. It was an incredible achievement when it happened, and here we are 50 years later and we’re still talking about it. It was great when we played Houston on ESPN2 a couple of weeks ago, they devoted a part of the broadcast to that team. To me, what an incredible legacy that is – that 50 years later we’re still acknowledging and talking about that achievement. That means it truly stood the test of time.”{&end}