- Friday, February 18 1921 -
Centre College - 13 (Head Coach: Charles McDowell)
| Player | Pts |
|---|---|
| Eugene Bedford | 4 |
| Bo McMillin (*) | 0 |
| Ches McCall | 0 |
| George Maver | 7 |
| William Walden | 2 |
| Totals | 13 |
Kentucky - 20 (Head Coach: George C. Buchheit) - [Final Rank ]
| Player | Pts |
|---|---|
| Basil Hayden | 8 |
| William King | 6 |
| Paul Adkins | 4 |
| Gilbert Smith | 0 |
| Sam Ridgway | 2 |
| Bob Lavin | 0 |
| Totals | 20 |
| Prior Game | | | Next Game |
| Georgetown College 56 - 11 | | | Vanderbilt 37 - 18 |
Wildcats Win Over Centre Net Team, 20 to 13 in Sensational Contest
U.K. Quintet Outplays Unbeaten Colonels from Start to Finish
The Wildcat basketball squad of the University of Kentucky outplayed and decisively defeated the hitherto unbeaten Centre College quintet at the university gymnasium last night, clearly demonstrating its superiority to the mighty organization of the Danville school. The final score of the contest, than which there surely never a greater on the Wildcat court, was 20 to 13.
Crammed and jammed into every available inch of space, plastered onto the walls, roosting on the rafters, hanging down from the ceiling like flies in winter time, and peeking through the skylights, the largest crowd that was ever squeezed into the gymnasium to see a basketball game saw the Centre aggregation take its first defeat of the year at the hand of the well trained Kentucky squad. The crowd broke loose with a fearful roar as soon as the ball was put into play, and kept up a horrible noise all through the contest, pausing only for an occasional foul to be thrown and at some tense moments when the sphere would come perilously near falling into the Centre basket.
The game was so full of sensational plays, wonderful feats of goal shooting, and tense seconds when the lead depended on a hairbreadth's turn in the ball, that every one of the record audience was kept on its figurative tiptoes during every minute of the game. The minutes were days. Fans counted time by the almanac, it seemed. Dignified and undemonstrative elder members of the crowd waxed as enthusiastic as the most vivacious youngsters. All pronounced the game as a fit demonstration of the prowess of the best trained team of basketeers the university has ever put out.
The Wildcats plainly had the best of the floor work throughout the contest, but the outcome was in doubt until the game was over. Both teams guarded furiously and remarkably well, and only 11 fouls were called during the contest, eight on the Colonels and three on the Wildcats. In spots, rather rough tactics were used, and cries of "football" and "throw 'em out" broke out among the more feverish of the spectators. The game, as a whole, was the cleanest played on the Wildcat floor this year, and in point of the science of basketball, it has had no rival among the contests staged here this season.
Somebody asked who starred. It would be a crime to say that any one of that bunch stood out as the stellar light of the game. The real star of the contest which labels the Wildcats the premier basketball team of the State was on the sidelines in the person of Coach George Buchheit. Buchheit has trained the Kentucky squad down to the minutest perfection ever seen in a net team of the university, and to him should go the credit for the victory of the Wildcats.
The Hayden-King-Atkins combination that has been the main feature of other contest this year, while it was not overproductive of points last night, due to the close defense of the visitors, was responsible for the majority of the Wildcat goals. Hayden and King shot three or four goals that were nothing short of remarkable.
Both teams, contrary to the customs of earlier games, took many shots from the center of the court without making effort to move nearer the goal. Scarcely one of these, however, netted a score, and every goal was fought for and deserved, with the possible exception of the first field goal the Centre five caged.
Centre caged the first field goals of the contest and went off in the lead. The Wildcats, however, failed to wait until the second half this time to "get started." and they soon had a lead of a couple of field goals. The score at the end of the first half was 11 to 7 in favor of the local team.
When the second half started, skillful work on the part of the Centre team brought the score into tie at 11 all. The audience was breathless while Bill King picked up the ball to try for a foul goal and timed at the hoop. He made it, and the Colonels never got any closer to the lead.
Game Writeup - Danville Daily Messenger
CENTRE LOSES CLOSE CONTEST TO STATE
Wildcats Defeat Colonels 20 to 13; Centre Asks for Another Chance
The Centre College basketball team, which had been so far undefeated this season, was beaten by the Kentucky State five last night in Lexington by the score of 20 to 13. The game was played on the floor of the State Gymnasium and a record crowd attended the game. It was estimated that two thousand people were turned away from the doors and about one hundred people from Danville were unable to gain admittance, and waited in the hall, getting reports from door keepers on the progress of the game. The only Danville person favored by becoming admitted without a coupon for a seat was Miss Dorothy Mahan, the Queen of the Centre Athletic Carnival of 1921. Even she was not admitted until the Centre boys refused to play until she was brought in and given a seat.
The score was a painfully close one - and a hard one for the local boys to lose, as the score was still standing eleven to eleven in the middle of the last half. It was not until the last four or five minutes of play that the decision came when both teams gave up all attempts at breaking through their tight defenses and resorted to desperate efforts to win by long shots. All ten men began shooting from the middle of the floor and behind the centre ring and a game that had hitherto been a wonderful exhibition of scientific basketball became a game of chance. The outcome of the wild long-shot contest, no more like basketball than shooting craps, was that the State team had dropped three field goals through the ring and annexed a few extra fouls while Centre only succeeded in making one long shot. Time after time, George Maver brought the crowd to their feet by making close ones from the middle of the floor. Several of them lingered threateningly on the rim before falling off on the wrong side, but only one of them went through.
The most outstanding feature of the contest was the defense put up by both sides. Two teams that have been running up scores of fifty and sixty points on ordinary teams, had locked horns and in the latter part of the last half still only four field goals had been thrown by each side. McMillin, for the first time in his life, had been shut out, and Maver, probably the best forward in the Southern States, had only gotten one goal. King, the star forward of the Kentucky five, who is being touted for all-Southern honors, had only annexed one goal and it had been made backwards over the left side of his head - a prodigy of skill or good fortune. One is tempted to believe the latter.
People on the streets are asking "what is the matter with the Centre team?" There wasn't anything the matter. They played a good, hard-fought game, and there isn't a single man that has any reason to be ashamed of the showing that he made. Ches McCall, the sub. guard who took Captain Armstrong's place, is especially to be commended, as he played a remarkably defensive game. When it was known that our husky captain could not even start, it was felt that our defense could hardly be held in tact, and while it is possible that we might have won if Armstrong could have been in the game, still it is hard to see how anybody could have done better as a stationary guard than did McCall. But no individual, no matter how great a star he may be, can make up for the handicap of having the machinery of the team changed at the last minute by the removal of one of the men around whom the team formations have been built.
Centre is not going to yell any "Armstrong Alibi"; we are not going to hatch up any freak excuses for the losing of the game. We are not going to knock on the referee or the umpire - Mr. Hinton, of Georgetown and Mr. Fogle, or Ohio State were good officials. We are not going to knock Kentucky State - they played a good clean game - Captain Hayden and Billy King are Wizards, and Coach Buckheit is a clever coach and a gentleman. This is all Centre College has to say: "Kentucky State, we challenge you to a game, to play off the tie, to be played on a neutral floor for the championship of Kentucky and the South." If we win this game and we believe we can, then we are ready to start on our Eastern trip looking for wider fields to conquer and greater honors to win."
As the paper goes to press the athletic council of Kentucky State is in session deciding whether or not they will accept the invitation given them last night immediately after the game to play a third game in Louisville on March third on a neutral floor. March third is the only available date for the two teams to play as Centre starts East on March fourth and State goes to Atlanta next Wednesday immediately after their Vanderbilt game to take part in the tournament and doesn't return until March the first.
