For years visiting coaches have complained that the Heart O' Texas Coliseum in Waco was the poorest lighted gym they have ever seen. But this was ridiculous.
At least some light is better than none and none is what the Baylor Bears and Texas A&M Aggies were left with during the intermission of their game Wednesday night.
A member of the Baylor band, running almost an hour late for the game, sped into the parking lot as halftime was about to end and slammed his car into a utility pole atop which set a transformer. The transformer exploded and out went the lights.
Almost two hours and one argument later, the game was resumed with only about 25 percent of the lights burning. But 15 seconds into the second half every light in the building blinked on and the teams were able to finish out the contest in semi-orderly fasion.
It wasn't totally orderly because Texas A&M assistant coach Barry Davis was slapped with a technical foul with 2:31 to play that was the key in Baylor pulling off a 58-55 upset win that kept the Aggies from moving into first place in the Southwest Conference race.
'Is it Thursday or still Wednesday?' asked Baylor coach Jim Haller.
But it wasn't just wild in Waco. TCU's Darrell Browder hit an 18-foot jumper with four seconds left in Fort Worth to bring the Horned Frogs a 58-57 win over Rice that pushed TCU into a second place tie with Texas A&M and Texas at 6-3.
Texas broke a three-game winning streak by holding off SMU in Austin, 69-56, and Houston opened a 14-point lead late in the game thanks to two technical fouls on Texas Tech coach Gerald Myers, but had to sweat at the end before pulling out an 83-80 decision over the Red Raiders.
Arkansas, sporting a 6-2 record and now a half game ahead of three clubs, had the night off.
The first half of the A&M-Baylor game was eventful enough with Terry Teagle scoring 13 of his 24 points, including the last five of the period, to push the Bears in front, 32-31.
Then, just before the teams came out for the start of the second half, the lights went out. An emergency generator was able to produce enough light to see by, but that was about all.
An hour after the outage had begun, the power came back on but, still, only partial light was restored inside the building.
Referee Lynn Shortnacy called Southwest Conference Commissioner Cliff Speegle at his home in Dallas and asked him what to do.
'He said the game was in my hands,' said Shortnacy as he surveyed the shadowy coliseum. 'I believe we can go ahead and play.'
Texas A&M coach Shelby Metcalf, however, did not want to continue the game and he told Shortnacy so.
'The only way I will stay is if you tell me you are going to forfeit the game if we leave,' Metcalf told the referee.
'I am going to forfeit it if you leave,' Shortnacy said. So Metcalf and the Aggies stayed. The whole thing became moot, however, when the lights came on in the opening seconds of the half.
The game stayed close throughout the second half and with Baylor owning a one-point lead and having the ball with 2:31 to play, it appeared one of the Bears traveled.
Davis stepped onto the court to protest and Shortnacy slapped him with a technical. Teagle hit the two technical free throws and then, moments later, was fouled and he made two more.
The Bears' lead thus went up to five points and although the Aggies had a chance to tie it in the final seconds, a shot by Reggie Roberts would not drop. Jay Shakir's free throw with three seconds to go provided the final margin.
'There were so many big plays in this game that they all seemed like keys,' said Haller. 'Certainly, the tecnhical was a big difference because it came at a crucial time.
'All I know is that this was a big victory for us.'
He said the delay was a first for him.
'There was nothing I could do about it,' he said. 'I've never been through anything like this. When I was at Texas A&M (as Metcalf's assistant) we had a 45-minute delay because of a leak on the Lubbock Coliusem roof, but I've never seen anything this long.'
In Fort Worth, the lead changed hands three times in the final minute and Rice's Ricky Pierce missed a chance to put the game away with 13 seconds when, with his team leading by a point, he missed the front end of a one-and-one foul opportunity.
'It was just a typical game for us,' said TCU coach Jim Killingsworth, whose team has won its share of close ones this year. 'It seems like we are always going to have it close at the end.'
