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- Friday, December 21 1928 -
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Miami (OH) - 42 (Head Coach: Roy Tillotson)
| Player | FG | FT | FTA | PF | Pts | 
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Taylor | 9 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 19 | 
| Harold Clouser | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 
| Aaron Gerrard | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 
| Weldon Canfield | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 
| Chalmer Richardson | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 
| Don McEntire | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 
| Cecil Moyer | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 
| John Douglas | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 
| Totals | 19 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 42 | 
Kentucky
 -
 43
 (Head
 Coach:
 John
 Mauer)
 -
 [Final
 Rank
 ]
| Player | FG | FT | FTA | PF | Pts | 
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Louis McGinnis | 5 | 4 | 8 | 2 | 14 | 
| Cecil Combs | 9 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 19 | 
| Fred McLane | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 
| Stanley Milward | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 
| Paul McBrayer | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 
| Lawrence McGinnis | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 
| Totals | 18 | 7 | 15 | 6 | 43 | 
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| Prior Game | | | Next Game | 
| Eastern Normal 35 - 10 | | | North Carolina 15 - 26 | 
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EXTRA PERIODS NEEDED
Before University of Kentucky Quintet Can Turn Back Miami
Lexington, Ky., December 21 - In the most exciting college basket ball game witnessed on a local floor in five years, University of Kentucky defeated Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 43 to 42 in three extra periods tonight. I was the second game and the second victory of the season for the Kentucky quintet.
The team battled furiously to a 38-to-38 ties in the regulation time. The first extra period was scoreless, but the second session made up for what the initial one lacked in spectacular basket ball. Miami apparently had the game tucked away, 40 to 38, when Cecil Combs, Wildcat forward, sank a field goal just as the gun sounded, knotting the score 40 to 40.
In the third extra period, Miami went ahead, 42 to 40, on Richardson's long field goal. Garrard, Miami forward, fouled McGinnis and McGinnis made the count 41 to 42.
A moment later McBrayer passed the oval to Combs, who scored a beautiful crip shot from underneath the basket making the count 43 to 42.
The Wildcats were successful in keeping the ball in their possession until the game ended.
Game Writeup - [by Neville Dunn] Lexington Leader
CATS WIN HECTIC GAME 43 TO 42
Three Extra Periods Required to Get Decision Over Miami Quintet
Everything that could happen in a basket ball game except heart failure among the fans and paralysis among the players occurred in that desperate 43 to 42 struggle between the University of Kentucky Wildcats and Miami University's Red Wave in the U.K. gym Friday night and before the three extra periods were over, those two afflictions came perilously near to developing.
Kentucky was on the bright side of the 43 to 42 result, but it might just as easily have been Miami. And if it had, the 2,000 fans present would not have argued any point about superiority; no two more evenly matched quintets ever fought through 55 minutes of furious, slashing, smashing basket ball.
Heroes galore cropped up for the fans to worship and there were just about as many on Miami's big Red team as there were on Kentucky's smaller Wildcats. A disinterested person watching the game because he likes basket ball would have been thunderstruck at the ferocity and sheer skill of the foes; a partisan spectator, and 1,999 out of 2,000 fans present were pulling for Kentucky, were carried away by their feelings and the final gun, popping when the Wildcats were one little meager (but looking powerfully big) point ahead, left them as limp as so many dish rags. The croaking of a million frogs could not have made a more eerie sound than the yell that broke from the parched throats of the frenzied fans when the debacle ended.
When the gun ended the regular playing time of 40 minutes, the two teams were deadlocked in a 38 to 38 embrace. A few seconds before the second half ended, little Louis McGinnis, not big enough when he was in high school to make the team, strode up to the foul line and without hesitation or apparent nervousness, though Atlas must not have found the weight of the world any greater responsibility than that which rested on the youngster's shoulders, dropped in two free throws. Neither time did the ball strike the rim of the basket but sank through the net with a swish that sounded like a symphony from Beethoven to the fans. Those two points swelled Kentucky's total to 38, and put it even with Miami, which had been trying frantically to keep the ball away from the Cats in the final seconds.
The teams rested a minute and then began the first extra five-minute period. Back and forth the ball went, up and down the court and everywhere it went, a defensive man, red or blue, haunted it like a shadow. No player on either team got a real good chance at the basket and the five minutes ended without a score. Both teams realized that a foul perhaps would lose the game and there resulted the finest exhibition of defensive basket ball ever seen on the Wildcats' floor.
Just before the regular game ended, Coach Johnnie Mauer had taken out Pisgah Combs and put McLane into the battle. Before the first extra period started Mauer sent Combs back into the tilt and to his dying day Mauer will never do anything but rejoice that he did.
Taylor, a wizard in disguise, put things on ice for Miami it appeared in the last minute of the second five-minute period. He draped the basket with a shot from the sidelines that touched nothing but the net on its perpendicular dash to the floor. Up until that time, the defense of the two teams was as effective as it had been in the first period and no good opportunities for goals were had.
After Taylor made his spectacular shot, Miami began freezing the ball and the hopes of the Kentucky fans, as the few remaining seconds were ticked off to the rhythm of their furious heart beats, sank to their shoe tops. Suddenly, Kentucky got hold of the ball and McBrayer began a cautious advance of the floor. Splitting his ear drums were frantic cries of "shoot, shoot!" from the fans, but the Lawrenceburg youngster made no sign that he heard them. Like a snake striking, McBrayer lashed a bounce pass to Pisgah Combs at the right side-line. In a flash, Combs pivoted, dribbled once, got set and let the ball fly from his fingers. The pellet arched gracefully and unerringly for the goal, had left his fingers by no more than the merest fraction of a second when the timer fired the gun putting an end to the period. The fans heard that gun, but their eyes were glued on the ball. If it went in, the score would be tied again. The sphere struck the rim of the basket, rebounded back into the air, two feet above the basket, and then, like a sigh, it sank through the net.
Pandemonium broke loose in the gymnasium. Hundreds had already left their seats and were passing through the door, so sure did it seem that Miami would win. The fans herded back into the gymnasium and there, in the next five-minute period, saw Kentucky outscore Miami three points to two and carry off the doggonedest, rip-snorting, basket ball game they ever saw.
It was Miami's peculiar and nerve-wracking custom to be the first to sink a basket in the three extra periods and the third five-minute addition to the game had not been very old when Richardson, all-Ohio guard, advanced the ball to the middle of the floor and took a desperate shot at the basket. The ball went in and Kentucky fans were in despair again.
Given Free Throw
Shortly afterwards, Little Louis McGinnis was charged from the rear by the same Richardson and Referee Frank Lane gave him a free throw. Again the youngster put the ball through the net and Kentucky was only one point behind. Being one-point behind, however, did not help matters unless a field goal was made and the Wildcats, growing more deliberates as the game progressed, set themselves to the task of getting one. McBrayer brought the ball up the floor, Miami rushed out to hurry him, but he passed the ball to Combs and like a bullet, the Lexington boy was under the net and sank a beautiful crip. If sound waves could have crumbled the walls of the gymnasium the Wildcats' home would be a mass of ruins today. The building was shaken to its foundations by the mighty yell that rose from the stands.
Less than half a minute of the playing time remained and the Wildcats were fighting desperately to get the ball. Miami took it on the tip-off and as quickly shot for the goal. The ball missed by inches and Milward got it off the back-board. Then followed a series of passes among the Wildcats and the gun, ending the third extra period, found the pill in the Mauermen's possession and with them one point lead, 43 to 42.
Combs had the ball when the tilt ended and he threw it with all his might against the backboard of Miami's goal as if it were too hot for him to hold longer.
The game was so spectacular and so exciting, the fans had little time to be impressed with anything except the flight of the ball as it was propelled toward the goals. Nevertheless, the game was rather a remarkable one from a technical standpoint. Miami made the majority of its shots from a distance, registering points from any part of the floor, while the Wildcats made only two long shots in the entire game. One was made by McBrayer and was unsuccessful, the other was made by Combs and it was the one that tied the game at 40 to 40. All the other Wildcat points came from crip goals or free throws.
Considering the ferocity of the battling, a remarkably small number of fouls were committed. The Wildcats made six in all, none of which were made in any of the extra periods. Miami made 11 fouls, only one of which occurred in the extra periods. Two of the fouls made by the Wildcats were committed simultaneously, a very unusual thing. McBrayer and Big McGinnis fouled Taylor the same time as he dribbled under the basket.
four of Miami's points resulted from free throws, while seven of the Wildcats' markers came about via the free route.
Another unusual thing happened. Referees were changed during the course of the tilt. Frank Lane, of Cincinnati, was due to referee but on account of a delayed train did not reach the gymnasium until three-quarters of the game had been played. His place was taken until then by George Gividen, of Lexington.
Pisgah Combs and Taylor, the Miami flash, shared high scoring honors with 19 points each. Little McGinnis, the foul shooter, and Canfield, Miami's center, got 12 each.
The game started as if Kentucky would walk away with the tilt, the Cats taking a 11 to 1 lead. Coach Tillotson, at that point, took out McEntire and Richardson, his guards, gave them instructions and sent them back into the tilt. From then on, Miami played as if inspired.
The Cats' lead was cut down and a few minutes before the half ended, Miami was leading 19 to 18. Kentucky rallied, however, in those closing seconds and had taken the front again as the period ended, 22 to 19.
The second half found Miami first overtaking Kentucky and then swapping goal for goal with the Wildcats.
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