A women's basketball game making "news"--for the wrong reason

This past Friday was a record-setting day for the otherwise mundane world of women's basketball. Two top-10 teams--Kentucky and Baylor--set a women's NCAA Division I record by scoring a combined 263 points. Of course, it took four overtime periods to achieve this result, and neither team shot the ball particularly well from the field. In fact it was fairly typical fare, as the ESPN "highlights" demonstrated: Either a player scored on  a drive to the basket while the opponents stood around watching as if they were spectators, or there was the usual dirth of athleticism, as there was a foul every time a play was defensed. Thus while there were 84 field goals scored, there were also 82 free throws made. There were a total of 80 fouls called in the game, 47 on Baylor. Seven Baylor players fouled out, leaving only five players left to compete--and two of those were one foul from leaving the game.

Kentucky won the game 133-130. If the game had continued, it was likely another Baylor player would have fouled out--or perhaps sooner until officials realized what they had wrought. Of course that brings up the interesting question of what happens when more than seven players on a 12-player roster fouls out in a game. According to NBA rules, it is not allowed to have less than five players from each team on the floor. Rather than a team forfeit a game, all subsequent fouls called on players with the maximum six fouls will be counted as a technical foul. Playing under these circumstances, Don Otten set the NBA record with eight fouls in a game back in 1949. In the college game, players who commit more than he maximum five fouls must leave the game; if the number of players fouling out leaves less than five players on court for a particular team, then it is up to the officials' discretion to determine if the "short" team can remain competitive, or be obliged to forfeit.

I spent a good half-hour scouring the Internet in an attempt to find a game in which this occurred. This circumstance "occasionally" happens, but apparently only in the obscure lower college divisions. One example was a 1988 game between two men's junior college teams, United Tribes Technical College (which serves the tribal community in North Dakota) and the University of North Dakota at Bottineau.  United Tribes actually only had five players to start with, and finished with three players on floor; nevertheless, they still managed to win the game 84-81.