Tennessee - 57 (Head Coach: Ray Mears) - [Unranked]

Player	Min	FG	FGA	FT	FTA	Reb	PF	Pts
A.W. Davis	40	7	19	6	11	11	3	20
Howard Bayne	23	1	5	1	1	6	4	3
Sid Elliott	40	3	9	1	1	6	3	7
Danny Schultz	40	4	7	3	3	2	2	11
Larry McIntosh	35	4	6	4	5	4	1	12
Bobby Hogsett	13	2	3	0	0	3	1	4
Pat Robinette	9	0	2	0	0	1	0	0
Team						5
Totals	200	21	51	15	21	38	14	57

Kentucky - 66 (Head Coach: Adolph Rupp) - [Ranked 4th by AP]

Player	Min	FG	FGA	FT	FTA	Reb	PF	Pts
Ted Deeken	40	6	16	0	0	8	2	12
Larry Conley	40	4	6	2	5	3	3	10
Cotton Nash	40	11	26	1	1	8	4	23
Terry Mobley	40	4	10	0	2	7	3	8
Tommy Kron	40	6	7	1	1	6	4	13
Team						5
Totals	200	31	65	4	9	37	16	66

ZONE CAUGHT TENNESSEE OFF BALANCE -- RAY MEARS

"Was that a 1-3-1 zone they used ?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask Adolph."

Returning the question unanswered was Coach Ray Mears, whose Tennessee Vols had fallen 66-57 to Adolph Rupp's Kentucky Wildcats.

Concerning a radical zone defense which utilized the height of surprise starter Tom Kron, Rupp said: "We never have played a zone defense and I doubt that we ever will."

But he was laughing.

And he added, "That was a stratified transitional hyperbolic paraboloid defense."

By any name, the defense definitely caught Tennessee off-balance, which Mears admitted, "We had practiced against the zone, but not the one they were using," he said. "Adolph concocted it just for us."

Key man in the Kentucky defense was 6-foot-6 Kron, a sophomore who held high-scoring Danny Schultz of Middlesboro to 11 points.

Schultz was asked his first reaction when coming down the floor and meeting Kron and a zone defense.

"I knew Rupp had it in for me," he said. "I wish he'd play a man-to-man against me.

"I didn't think he had it (the zone) in him."

Schultz said Kentucky's 1-3-1 wasn't the toughest he's played against, taking second fiddle to a box and one zone.

Mears said Tennessee should have been ready for the 1-3-1 because Kentucky used it against their freshmen last year.

Rupp said the defensive effort was Kentucky's best of the season. "We knew we had to stop Schultz and Davis.

"But I see here that Davis got 20, He must have thrown some in after the horn sounded."

Rupp, who used the defense "because we had some bronchitis on the team and we aren't physically up to par," decided on it 13 minutes before game time.

He pointed out that Kron "played a lot of point" (front man in the zone) on defense (in high school) and we thought he would be able to take care of a big man better than a little man."

Mears said Kron's height was definitely a factor, as was Kentucky's concentration on Schultz and Davis

"They were actually playing three of our men," he said "They weren't worried about the other two."

"It's a good defense," he said. "That's all I can tell you." The big difference, he said, was when Kentucky scored 14 points as a direct result of Tennessee errors.

He was also a little bitter toward the officials, but didn't pursue this point other than to say, "They started calling things at the last they should have called at first."

He added that when the ball was going info Davis on the high post - "Murder," meaning he thought Davis was being fouled.

Mears knew what Kentucky was going to do the minute the Wildcat starting lineup was announced.

It was the first time the Vols had met a 1-3-1 this year.

"That's just something else you've got to work on," he said. "We've got the films. We'll know what to do the next time."

That next time is in Knoxville Feb. 29. Mears "hopes" the Southeastern Conference crown will rest on the outcome of that game.

Tommy Kron (#30), Cotton Nash (#44), Larry Conley (#40) and Terry Mobley defend

Tennessee's Danny Schultz (#15) and Howard Bayne (#51) argue with referee A.C. Lambert

Cotton Nash with a hook shot

This page was made with a Macintosh
Use the Best, Don't settle for Less