Yep they did. The Washington Generals(I think that was their name) traveled with the Trotters and lost every game. Not to insinuate they could have won if they even wanted to. A good show they were.
The Generals beat the Globetrotters once
All that legit basketball paid off once — on Jan. 5, 1971, in Martin, Tennessee.
Accounts of the game differ, but what’s generally agreed upon is that the Globetrotters were missing their best player, Curly Neal, and were generally in a funk. They weren’t hitting shots, their opponents were. As often happens, everybody stopped looking at the scoreboard to watch the fun things the Globetrotters were doing — until with a few minutes left, the Globetrotters realized they were down 12.
The thing they should’ve done was do their funny basketball tricks, the ones their opponents were not allowed to defend. Instead, they tried to win straight up. That ended with the ball in the hands of Generals owner/player/coach Red Klotz with a few seconds left — and he drilled a shot to give the Generals the win. Martin was a dry town, and the Generals didn’t travel with champagne (for obvious reasons) so they poured orange soda on each other in the locker room.
Klotz would say dozens of times over the years that the stunned fans looked at his team as if they had “killed Santa Claus.” http://www.sbnation.com/2015/8/14/9152971/washington-generals-harlem-globetrotters-losing-all-the-time