MOORHEAD, Minn. -- MSU Moorhead's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and the Office of Diversity & Inclusion is presenting a free screening of The Loyola Project on Thursday, February 1 beginning at 7 p.m. inside Hansen Theatre.

The event is free and open to the public and tickets can be reserved through the MSUM ticketing website. The film will begin at 7:00 p.m. followed by a Q&A session. 

The Loyola Project chronicles the 1963 Loyola University (Chicago) men's basketball team and the Game of Change, which broke down racial barriers on their path to becoming NCAA Champions. Coached by George Ireland, the Ramblers were one of the first to break the unwritten rule that no team should play more than two black players at a time in an NCAA basketball game. The Ramblers traditionally played three and sometimes four black players at once as the team finished the season 29-2 after defeating Cincinnati in the NCAA championship by a 60-58 overtime decision. Their influence eventually opened the door for the 1965-66 Texas Western Miners basketball team to start five black players for the first time in NCAA basketball history. That Miners team was profiled in the 2006 film Glory Road. 

The Game of Change was a contest played between the Ramblers and Mississippi State in March of 1963. Prior to the game, there was an unwritten rule where no team from Mississippi could even compete against a team that featured black players. The Bulldogs, an all-white roster at the time, opted to compete against Loyola University in the NCAA Tournament game in East Lansing, Michigan, thus 'breaking' the rule. The contest is long regarded as a key turning point in the desegregation of college basketball. The Ramblers would go on the defeat the Bulldogs, 61-51, in front of over 12,000 spectators.