Championship Basketball at Brigham Young University

Stanley H. Watts became the head basketball coach at Brigham Young University in January 1949 when Floyd Millet retired. Coach Watts quickly brought the Cougar basketball squad to national prominence. The 1949-1950 team won the Skyline Conference championship and finished third in the NCAA Regional Tournament. The 1950-1951 team would also win a conference championship and would defeat the Dayton Fliers to win the National Invitational Championship (NIT). Under Coach Watts the Cougars played an energetic uptempo game and would remain competitive nationally throughout the 1950s and 1960s–winning the National Invitational Championship again in 1966.

NIT Championship Basketball team, 1950-1951

NIT Championship Basketball team, 1965-1966

The University Archives is home to numerous collections documenting basketball at Brigham Young University. Many of these resources are described in the Popular Search Topics page Brigham Young University Basketball and the blog posting Basketball at Brigham Young University.

If you have questions about these resources, contact the University Archivist at (801) 422-5821 or gordon_daines@byu.edu