Roger Kaiser was exactly what the movie “Hoosiers” was about. He was an Indiana native with a crew cut, Chuck Taylor high tops and a jump shot that made the net cords dance from any spot on the floor.
“It makes me shudder to think what a helluva shooter that Roger Kaiser is,” said Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp after his Wildcats, who escaped with an 89-79 victory on national television. “He’s murder.”
Kaiser almost single-handedly murdered the ’Cats that day at Memorial Coliseum. With blood streaming from a cut over his eye, he poured in a career-best 38 points, the most points any individual had ever scored against mighty Kentucky.
A year earlier, Kaiser had delivered the killing blow in Tech’s 62-60 upset of the Wildcats before a packed house at Alexander Memorial Coliseum.
With the score tied at 60-60, Kaiser calmly dribbled away most of the final 31 seconds before he made his move. Then he darted to his left and let fly with a twisting one-hander from about 15 feet, over the outstretched arms of Kentucky’s Bill Lickert and into the basket as the buzzer sounded.
To add insult to injury, Kaiser performed his heroics with a fractured thumb on his shooting hand.
“Everyone in the place knew that Kaiser was going to shoot,” lamented Rupp. “But what could we do about it. Our boy had him covered, but he got it off. It was a difference of one second and two points.”
Newspaper accounts speculated that, “Perhaps never in the history of the big bowl on The Flats has one man done so much to win a game as did Kaiser in this tense struggle.”
Mississippi State head coach Babe McCarthy echoed Rupp’s praise.
“That Roger Kaiser is one of the greatest players I’ve seen and I’m doggone happy I don’t have to see him again,” said McCarthy after Kaiser scored over half of Tech’s points in a 62-61 overtime loss to the Bulldogs. “I’ve already seen too much of that boy.”
Tech’s Roger Kaiser excelled as a player and a coach – Georgia Trend magazine