| # | Name | Pos | Class | Ht. | Wt. | Hometown (School) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| - | Brinkley Barnett (L) | G | Jr. | 5-9 | 130 | Somerset, KY (High) | - |
| - | Nelson Kimbrough | F | So. | 5-10 | - | Lexington, KY (High) | - |
| - | Derrill Hart (L) | F | Sr. | 6-2 | - | Pisgah, KY | - |
| - | W. C. Harrison (L) | C | Sr. | 6-4 | 176 | Bagdad, KY (High) | - |
| - | Jake Gaiser (L) | G | Sr. | 6-0 | 163 | Lexington, KY (High) | - |
| - | Henry Farmer (L) | F | Jr. | 5-9 | - | Harlan, KY | - |
| - | R. C. Preston (L) | C | So. | 5-10 | - | Inez, KY (High) | - |
| - | James Park | C | Fr. | 6-2 | 168 | Richmond, KY (Model) | - |
| - | Stanley Ridd | F | Jr. | 5-9 | - | Newport, KY (High) | - |
| - | William Tuttle (L) | F | Fr. | 5-9 | 168 | Somerset, KY (High) | - |
| - | Brandy Brandstetner | G | Fr. | 5-8 | 160 | Covington, KY (Holmes) | - |
| - | Augustus Weisenberger | G | Jr. | 5-9 | - | Midway, KY | - |
| - | Thomas Beatty | C | Sr. | - | - | Smithfield, KY | - |
| Schedule | Player Statistics |
 |
1911-12 Squad |
Standing (l to r) : Brinkley Barnett, R.C. Preston, W.C. Harrison, D.W. Hart, Jake Gaiser |
Season Review - A Review of the Season (The Idea)
For the first time in the history of this University we have not met defeat in this line of sport. We do not know whether any athletic team of this University ever went through a season without a single defeat in the past, but we know that no athletic team has accomplished this feat in recent years. But even if there was one team with this record it does not detract one iota from the glory of the basket-ball season just closed. We have always been weak in basket-ball. We had no basket-ball coach until Mr. Sweetland first came, and there was practically no interest taken in the sport by the student body. The basket-ball season invariably lost money for the Athletic Association, and it was proposed and seriously considered that this line of sport be eliminated. All this has now changed. Instead of being looked down upon contemptuously as in the past, basketball will from this time forward be one of the chief sports at this institution. For the first time in years and probably in our history, we are the undisputed champions of Kentucky, and we conscientiously believe that we are champions of the South. Those magic word, "Southern Champions," have been our goal for many years, but until now we have never been able to lay claim to them and rightfully claim them as our own. Now, however, we feel that we have a right to claim the Southern championship, and we would be willing to stake our team against any team in Dixie, and we are confident that the Blue and White would come out on top as usual.
The first game of the season was with Georgetown, in which Georgetown was defeated by a score of 38 to 12. The entire first team started this game, but in the second half the two forwards were removed and Farmer and Kimbro, second team men, were substituted. The game was easy, but the students had an opportunity get a line on the Varsity, and they gave promise of a great season.
The next game was with Central, at Danville, on January 12. This game was also easily won, the score being 32 to 13. This was the first time we had beaten Central in basket-ball in more than four years and was an occasion for general rejoicing. The feature of this game was the playing of Gaiser, who, although he was playing guard, scored five baskets.
Miami was the next victim. She came down from across the Ohio river to "try a fall" with us on January 19. She surely did get what was coming to her. Kentucky winning the game by a score of 31 to 14, playing under strange rules. The attendance began picking up at this game, due no doubt to the fact that a dance was held in honor of the Miami players immediately after the game, and an exceedingly large crowd witnessed the game.
Next comes the saddest tale of all. Our old friends (?) Transylvania refused to submit to a good, sound thrashing, and began doing the "baby act" and canceled or rather refused to play the games scheduled with us. They never did give any real reasons for their actions, but to an onlooker it seems that they simply didn't want to get beat, and took the only available course to prevent it. This left our schedule in a pretty bad fix, but suffice it to say we survived. In the place of Transylvania, Varsity took on the strong Y.M.C.A. team of this city, defeating them by a score of 32 to 20, in a good, hard-fought game. In the last half of this game the entire second team was substituted, and they played well.
On February 1, Central came over from Danville and got the worst beating she probably has had in years. The Wildcats seemed to throw baskets at will and run up the score to 52 to 10. At the beginning of the second half the entire second team was substituted, and the scrubs made more points than the Varsity.
Tennessee was next. They put up a good scrap in the first half, but our boys soon put the quietus on them. Varsity couldn't throw baskets, so the scrubs went in, in the second half, and the game ended 27 to 15 in our favor.
Then the mighty Commodores came upon the scene. Vanderbilt always has the very best teams in the South in all branches of sport, and their basket-ball team this year was no exception to the usual rule. We think we are safe in saying that Vanderbilt lost only two games in the Southern Intercollegiate Association, and those two games were lost to Kentucky State. As usual, in the first game, State scored first, Gaiser making a long shot field goal, and we kept our lead by a narrow margin throughout the contest, which ended with a rush by our fellows, who run up the score to 28 to 17. The second contest was a faster and more exciting contest than the first, and the final score was 22 to 18 in our favor. For the first time in years, possibly in history, we had humbled the mighty Commodores.
Perhaps the best way to judge the work of the individual members of the team is to study their work in these last mentioned games. Captain Harrison played his excellent all round game. He was here, there and everywhere, and it was probably due to his good playing and generalship more than anything else that won these games.
Hart developed into the best long-distance goal tosser on the team, and he always made his goals from a difficult angle. Hart is one of the best men on the team, and he was the brightest star in most of the games of the season. He had guarding him in the Vandy games, a man who would outweigh him thirty pounds, but Hart always eluded him.
Gaiser and Preston can not be equaled in the South for breaking up the enemy's passing, and rarely do they allow their opponents to score on them. Jake played his best in the Vanderbilt games, and Preston, who had the hardest man on the team to handle, did remarkably well.
Barnett was the bright star of these two games. He had the largest man on the Vanderbilt team against him, while he himself is the smallest man on the Varsity. He threw more fouls than his opponent and won the second game by his foul throwing propensities.
To pick the star of these games and of the season would be exceedingly difficult, but we believe, with all due credit to the other men, that Hart was the best all round man.
Too much credit can not be given the scrubs. They have played the Varsity practically every day and have been in several of the games. Of these men, Farmer is the most promising, but all of the men are about equal.
For the first time in history, the basket-ball season has been a financial success. The students and the town people alike have flocked to these games, and at times people were turned away for lack of room.
The Wildcats scored 281 points while their opponents were scoring 134 points. Our average score for each game was 32 points, while our opponents average score was 15 points. Gaiser, at guard, threw 18 field goals; Preston, guard, threw 13 field goals; Hart, at forward, threw 22 field goals; Barnett, forward, threw 12 field goals; Harrison, captain and center, threw 20 field goals; Barnett scored 42 fouls and Gaiser scored on foul, making a total of 213 points scored by the first team, and leaving 68 points for the scrubs to score.
Every other team in the Kentucky Association has lost two or more games, and there can be absolutely no question as to our championship claims in the State.
Review of the Season - The Kentuckian
The Basketball season of 1912 was one glorious march from start to finish. Not only were we undefeated, but during the entire season not once was an opposing team ever in the lead. Nor was our schedule a weak one. Some of the strongest teams in Dixie fell victims to our conquering heroes. Central, Tennessee and Vanderbilt were all treated alike, the only difference being in the size of the score. All the teams of the Kentucky Inter-collegiate Athletic Association were easy victims of the Wild Cats; that is; all who had the temerity to meet us; some were too yellow and for this reason alone broke their contracts. Our conquests were not confined to Kentucky and the South. Miami came down from across the muddy Ohio to attach our scalps to the list of victims. They journeyed back, not with our scalps, but leaving their own clinging to our well filled belts. The Lexington Y.M.C.A., a strong semi-professional team, fell likewise a worthy victim to our unexcelled and impregnable team work.
The climax of the season was the two games played with Vanderbilt. These game, played on February 22 and 23, were filled with interest and were exciting to the highest degree. The proud Commodores had met and defeated nearly all the college teams of the South. They, in turn, were forced to bow to Kentucky, thus making our claim to the Southern Championship undisputed and secure. Our title to the Kentucky Championship is just as clear. Every team in the Kentucky Association has lost two or more games.
It is impossible to pick the star of the season. Each member of the team was a brilliant individual star, a cog in a perfect working machine.
Too much credit cannot be given to that valiant little band generally called the scrubs. They played the Varsity practically every day and were substituted in several games. They always gave a good account of themselves and it is safe to say they could win from any other college team in the state.
The whole season bears the impress of the magical hand of Coach Sweetland, who returned and took charge of athletics at Kentucky the first of the year. To him, if to any one man, the credit for this most successful season must be given. He filled the boys with confidence, trained and instructed them, as only he can, and, as is his invariable custom, turned out a championship team.
1912 Basketeers Question Officiating - The Kentucky Kernel (January 9, 1962)
lf you were angered and stunned at the rapidity with which the officials chimed out of their authoritative whistles in the UK-Georgia Tech game Saturday night, what do you think W. C. Harrison and Brinkley Barnett, members of the 1912 undefeated Wildcats, thought of the foul-frenzied game?
Harrison, who captained the '12 squad to victory over nine straight foes, didn't think much of it. The 71-year-old resident of Waco, Texas, where he is a "fill-in" instructor in the Baylor University Department of Religion, saw no sense in there being so many close calls.
"Why, when we played basketball it was a hard-nosed athletic contest," remembers Harrison. "It, would be nearly as rough as football." And, Harrison knew too, because he also captained the 1912 Kentucky grid gladiators.
"I remember one game in particular," Harrison went on as he reminisced in his guest seat on the apron of the Memorial Coliseum floor close to the Kentucky bench as UK lettermen returned home for "K-Night." "When we played Vanderbilt, a team which that year was ranked the best in the South, their center came up to me before the game and laid it on the line.
"What kind of game do you want to play?" questioned the Commodore pivot man. "Any kind of game you want to," was Harrison's reply.
"Let's play a rough one then," declared the Vandy player. "Okay, a rough one it will be," agreed Harrison.
"And, that's exactly what it was," according to Harrison. "Why, we knocked each other under the basket, up against the stands, on the floor, and anywhere else a human body could get knocked in the process of a basketball game.
"They didn't call all these sissy fouls then," said Harrison. "They let you play."
Apparently, Harrison came out somewhat the better, in the struggle as the Cats proceeded to harness the highly regarded Commodores with defeats on successive nights in Lexington. The first game ended 27-17 in favor of Coach E.R. Sweetland's vicious Wildcats. The second night Kentucky emerged victorious, 22-18.
These two wins, along with a pair earned against Georgetown, two against Central U. and one each at the expense of Tennessee, Miami (Ohio) and the Lexington YMCA prompted the 1912 UK basketeers to claim the championship of the South.
The closest the Cats came to tasting defeat that year was in the final game against arch-rival Georgetown when they eked out a 19-18 decision on the Tigers' home court. When asked how Kentucky won that tell-tale title, Harrison summed it up this way:
"Luck . . . pure luck.
"You should have seen it. Every time Georgetown shot, the ball would go in the basket and ring back out. We hit shots we should never have made. It was one of the worst games we ever played.
"Brinkley (Barnett) was our foul shooter. (One man shot all the free throws for his team in that era). And, against Georgetown he couldn't find the range. I don't know how many free tosses he blew."
Barnett, a professor in the UK College of Engineering up until his retirement two years ago, also was a little astonished at all the fouls and free throws in the Georgia Tech game.
"When I shot all the fouls, I wouldn't shoot but 10 or 15 a game. Why, these teams tonight shot 25 apiece."
Barnett said he hit a little over half of his attempts from the charity line back in 1912.
Other than the excessive whistle-tooting the thing that impressed, the honored returnees most at Saturday's first "K-Night" celebration was the size of today's basketball players.
"I was 6-1 when I played center on that undefeated team" remarked Harrison. "And they thought I was really a big man.
"I was looking at these big boys come on the court here tonight and I just thought to myself - My lands, I probably couldn't even make the team today. There's hardly a man out there under 6-1."
Although his work in religion and teaching has taken him all over North and South America since graduating from UK, Harrison has always remained loyal to the Wildcats. Asked who he pulled for when Kentucky played Baylor last month, he was quick to answer.
"Kentucky, of course. I always pull for these boys. I can't go back on my Alma Mater."
Harrison really must love Kentucky athletics. As a member of the 1911 UK football team, he returned here last November to be honored on "K-Day" and the 50th anniversary of that fine team. Saturday night, when the 50-year celebration was held for the 1912 basketballers, he was back again.
Waco, Texas, is approximately 1,100 miles from Lexington. That makes 4,400 miles Harrison traveled in two months to see his Alma Mater play twice.
It's people like Harrison and Barnett that make Kentucky athletics great.
