College players scores 138 points in a game

Grinnell guard erupts for record 138

Grinnell's Jack Taylor didn't just amend the NCAA's record books when he scored 138 points -- a new collegiate high mark -- in his team's 179-104 victory over Faith Baptist Bible Tuesday night. The Division III star wrote a new chapter.

"There was a point during the second half where I hit a number of threes in a row -- maybe seven or eight -- I felt like anything I threw up was going in," Taylor said. "I've been in the zone before but I've never taken so many shots."

Bevo Francis of Rio Grande held the NCAA scoring record with 113 points against Hillsdale in 1954. In 1953, Francis had 116 against Ashland Junior College. Frank Selvy is the only other player to reach triple figures, scoring 100 points for Division I Furman against Newberry in 1954.

Incredible, though putting up 108 shots will give you a decent shot at that. There are a few other things to consider when putting the record in perspective as well.

But it's much more than just taking a lot of threes, or winning the turnover battle. According to a former Grinnell player who took part in one of those record-setting games, the gameplan is designed from the outset to get a specific player the scoring mark, even at the expense of making a mockery of the game. The player told Deadspin:

"The strategy was to use a full court press after a made basket, with the caveat that [the player seeking the record] would not cross into the defensive side of the court. So, after our opponents broke our press, we were essentially playing four-on-five, which enabled the other team to take quicker shots and fall into our game plan.

"The rationale is to essentially trade off a quick two or more attempts at lower probability 3-point shots. Given the high pace required for the system, Grinnell shifts in five players every 30 to 45 seconds. Within each shift there is a primary shooter who will take the bulk of threes (or shots) during the shift."

This worked to perfection last night, and you can see it in the play-by-play. Grinnell would regularly sub out four players at a time, keeping Taylor on the court to continue chucking up threes—71 attempts from beyond the arc, to be specific. He also rarely bothered getting back on defense, with Grinnell content to let Faith Baptist score a quick two, if they didn't turn the ball over immediately. Taylor finished with just three rebounds, all off his own misses.

This, then, is how you score 138 points—a defense designed to get the ball back as fast as possible, even if it means letting the other team score. And the entire offense being funneled through one player, at the expense of turning down open shots. Tyler Burns rewatched the entire game, and had a few observations:

There were a LOT of possessions where Taylor would chuck up a shot, miss, and his teammate would get the rebound wide open under the basket. Instead of putting it back up, he would look for Taylor again and pass it out so he could chuck another three. There were many possessions where this happened three times each. Six three-point attempts in two trips down the court.

Literally 75% of [Faith Baptist's] points were full court heaves to get it over Grinnell's press, then a wide open layup on the other end. Oh, and David Larsen's "impressive" 70-point effort? Hardly. They were 90% wide open layups. He maybe took a handful of jump shots.

Kinda cheap.

They knew they outmatched their opponent so seems like they went out there just to have fun and get some attention while doing so. Meh. Agreeing with Andrew though that it's a cheap record set.

What a sham. I'll give him 38. The 100 was from the bullshit strategy.

lol at hating the player. Hate the system or the coach. He only did what his coach wanted him to do in that system and he did it very well.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5921703

Originally Published: December 15, 2010
When Arseneault took over at Grinnell, a tiny Division III school in central Iowa revered more for its academics than its fledgling basketball program, he sized up his team, looked at his competition and decided to do something revolutionary: He recruited guards.

Exclusively.

What it's become is "The System," Arseneault's bat-dung-crazy calling card that turned the Pioneers into the first Division III school to be televised by ESPN in 30 years and their coach into a fringe hoops guru overseeing an alternately revolutionary and exasperating basketball circus act.'

"The System" is powered by "The Formula," which calls for Grinnell's players -- who, like hockey lines, rotate every other minute in groups of five -- to attempt 94 field goals per game (47 of which should be 3-pointers), to crash the offensive glass with reckless abandon and to constantly press opponents the full length of the court for the entire game. It's not for the faint of heart or, frankly, fans of defense. And it requires lots of creative, intelligent and intuitive guards.

"Competitively, there's just so much more you can do with good guards across the entire court to eliminate some of those quarter-court disadvantages.

"Really, I just love watching good guards play," Arseneault said. "Sometimes I feel like a WWE ringleader trying to come up with new material. But more than anything, I want to watch people be creative with the basketball."

Last edited by shadowgrin on Fri Nov 23, 2012 11:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I wasn't directing at the player personally. Just at the performance. The other team could have at least tried to double team him something.

I am switching my stance on this topic. Probably not because the coach is a great Canadian but probebaly because of excellent game of basketball played.

Not really a great performance. Had he done it on 70-80 shots, then it may be a lot better but this isn't much of an accomplishment IMO.

i don't see anything wrong with it.

i don't see anything wrong with it.

It's a "spirit of the game/competition"/sportsmanship issue. The coach's system is designed specifically to set records, even if it means ridiculous things like giving up wide open shots around the basket to force feed a player so he can score a lot of points, having his teams play 4 on 5 defense so the potential record breaker can cherry pick and launch over 100 shot attempts, against an opponent that's been specially selected because they're not a particularly good team, in what is a weak division to begin with.

It's just a bit cheap and tacky.

The coach's system is designed specifically to set records even if it means ridiculous things like giving up wide open shots around the basket to force feed a player so he can score a lot of points, having his teams play 4 on 5 defense so the potential record breaker can cherry pick and launch over 100 shot attempts, against an opponent that's been specially selected because they're not a particularly good team, in what is a weak division to begin with

Not entirely the truth.
The system is designed to for 5 guards (or small players) on the floor and for one of them to shoot like crazy, as a result of being unable to recruit players with size on the team.
As for force feeding the player it's the coach's intention to keep giving his best player the ball same way it's intended by other coaches in higher levels of competition. It's a rotation of who will be the shooter in the team every game with those having the hot hand getting to stay for more minutes. Griffin Lentsch, previous record holder for Grinnell with 89 points...
http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/stor ... -part-plan

Before this season, it was rare for Lentsch -- or any Pioneer -- to play 20 minutes a game, even though he'd averaged 18.2 points over his career. And sure enough, in Grinnell's next game, Tuesday's 115-97 win over Wartburg College, he was back to scoring a more mortal 27 points and didn't even take the court until Grinnell's third shift.

i give him credit. he's still gotta hit all the shots. and in 36 mins, fatigue has got to be an issue

Sure, you've got to give some credit to the player for knocking down all those shots and getting the record. The way it was done was just kind of cheap, that's all.

Not entirely the truth.
The system is designed to for 5 guards (or small players) on the floor and for one of them to shoot like crazy, as a result of being unable to recruit players with size on the team.
As for force feeding the player it's the coach's intention to keep giving his best player the ball same way it's intended by other coaches in higher levels of competition. It's a rotation of who will be the shooter in the team every game with those having the hot hand getting to stay for more minutes. Griffin Lentsch, previous record holder for Grinnell with 89 points...
http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/stor ... -part-plan

Before this season, it was rare for Lentsch -- or any Pioneer -- to play 20 minutes a game, even though he'd averaged 18.2 points over his career. And sure enough, in Grinnell's next game, Tuesday's 115-97 win over Wartburg College, he was back to scoring a more mortal 27 points and didn't even take the court until Grinnell's third shift.

True, but a former player even confirmed that getting records using the system is something that's kept in mind. As noted in the article I posted:

"The strategy was to use a full court press after a made basket, with the caveat that [the player seeking the record] would not cross into the defensive side of the court. So, after our opponents broke our press, we were essentially playing four-on-five, which enabled the other team to take quicker shots and fall into our game plan.

"The rationale is to essentially trade off a quick two or more attempts at lower probability 3-point shots. Given the high pace required for the system, Grinnell shifts in five players every 30 to 45 seconds. Within each shift there is a primary shooter who will take the bulk of threes (or shots) during the shift."

Additionally:

There were a LOT of possessions where Taylor would chuck up a shot, miss, and his teammate would get the rebound wide open under the basket. Instead of putting it back up, he would look for Taylor again and pass it out so he could chuck another three. There were many possessions where this happened three times each. Six three-point attempts in two trips down the court.

The announcer actually said that Grinnell will look on their schedule for their weaker opponents and do everything they can to run up the score and break records. This is all within the game plan. One tactic the announcer mentioned was called "The Bomb Squad". If Grinnell's opponent gets into the double bonus, Grinnell will sub in five freshmen players, foul their opponent immediately once the ball is in play, send them to the line, then sub the freshmen players out to put their scorers back in on offense. This takes almost no time off the clock, giving their starters as many offensive possessions as possible.

The former is definitely force feeding, while the latter isn't exactly sporting.

Not entirely the truth.

True, but a former player even confirmed that getting records using the system is something that's kept in mind.

That's why I said not entirely instead of dismissing it outright because their system can be easily adjusted to go after scoring records.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

When Grinnell fell out of contention in the Midwest Conference race two weeks ago, the Barnumesque Arseneault set three season-ending goals for the Pioneers: Break the Division III record of 11 players from the same team making at least one three-pointer in a game, become the first team in the division to score 100 points in a half and make sure mat Clement won the scoring title.

Additionally:

There were a LOT of possessions where Taylor would chuck up a shot, miss, and his teammate would get the rebound wide open under the basket. Instead of putting it back up, he would look for Taylor again and pass it out so he could chuck another three. There were many possessions where this happened three times each. Six three-point attempts in two trips down the court.

...definitely force feeding

Yeah but it didn't mention when those force feeding possessions happened during the game.
Most of those possessions could have happened when he already had 50 points when he was just in the floor for 18 minutes or 20 points in just less than 10 minutes of court time. Like I said:

As for force feeding the player it's the coach's intention to keep giving his best player the ball

It is, but usually not at the expense of the logical play, like a wide open shot under the basket after an offensive rebound.

It's a "spirit of the game/competition"/sportsmanship issue. The coach's system is designed specifically to set records, even if it means ridiculous things like giving up wide open shots around the basket to force feed a player so he can score a lot of points, having his teams play 4 on 5 defense so the potential record breaker can cherry pick and launch over 100 shot attempts, against an opponent that's been specially selected because they're not a particularly good team, in what is a weak division to begin with.

It's just a bit cheap and tacky.

That's exactly how I feel about it.