12/8/1962

Al Johnson Scores Big Basket

Winning Points Come With 3 Seconds Left

By ED GALLARDO

As far as Arizonaa basketball fans are concerned, sophomore Albert Johnson made the two most important points of his life last night with three seconds left in the game to give Arizona a 62-60 victory over Arizona State College.

The basket preserved Arizona’s unbeaten record, push ing it to 3-0 on the young season, and giving ASC its first loss in three games.

The Wildcats, who had led throughout the first half and much of the second half, fell behind the alert Lumberjacks 43-41 with 11:55 left in the game.

From that point it appeared as if the Wildcats basketball bubble might burst. With 8:47 left the Logers had pulled out to a 47-41 lead and the Wildcats’ defense seemed unable to cope with their speedy attack and the offense was unable to score on the few occasions when it did get the ball.

Arizona coach Bruce Larson began substituting freely, trying to find the combination that would get Arizona back in the game and the substitutions finally paid off with seven minutes left when the Wildcats caught up to 47-47.

And the Wildcats finally took the lead for the second time in the half when Johnson connected with a field goal with 4:49 left, giving Arizona a 54-53 lead. But It was short-lived as the Lumberjacks came back within eight seconds to go ahead 55-54 on John Payne’s two-pointer.

Then the lead see-sawed with the Lumberjacks falling behind 60-58 with 2:30 left in the game. Dave Boyd tied it up with 1:47 left when he stole a pass and went in unmolested for a layup.

Flagstaff then attempted to stall to get the last shot but Payne got off a bad pass that went out of bounds with less than 30 seconds left and the Wildcats took the offensive.

Staying far out in the front court, the Wildcats stalled until with 10 seconds to go they started scrambling. The ball went to Johnson, who went to the right side of the basket and made his game-winning shot with three seconds left.

ASC called a time out with one second left, but its effort at a long basket went futilely by as time ran out.

In the preliminary game, the Frosh defeated the Axebabes 82-60, as Harvey Fox scored 16 points.