The quietest 70 points in NCAAl history
by Bryce Miller, USA TODAY Sports
For anyone without a television set, access to the Internet or general contact with other human beings, Grinnell basketball player Jack Taylor scored 138 points on Tuesday night.
As Taylor roared to the all-divisions NCAA record for scoreboard abuse, topping the mark of Rio Grande’s Bevo Francis in 1954 by a stunning 25 points, another player carved out a piece of history, too.
And almost no one noticed.
Emerging from the other locker room to start the game at Division III Grinnell was Faith Baptist sophomore David Larson … who was about to score the quietest 70 points in the history of college basketball.
As Grinnell funneled the ball to Taylor for shot after shot — an elbow-testing 108 in all — Larson was assigned to the far end of the court against the opponent’s full-court press. What it meant: The player from a winless college in Ankeny, Iowa, was about to conduct a two-hour, personal layup clinic to break his school’s record in the 179-104 loss.
For Larson, it was cardiovascular boot camp — in high-top sneakers.
Layups sound easy, right? Well, they are … until you try to score 33 of them.
“You get really tired,” Larson said of facing Grinnell, which uses a record-setting system that switches player lineups in shifts like an NHL line change. “That’s a lot of running.”
Do you try that many layups during pregame warm-ups? “No.” Do you run that many in practice? “No.”
Larson said he ran more short-court sprints at the basket Tuesday night than all the sprinting during an entire practice.
When it was over, Taylor had scored 138 points with a statistical line that might force an actuarial science student into counseling. Larson, though, was busy building a Frankenstein scorebook entry of his own.
The 70 points was built on 34-of-44 shooting, with 66 of those points on layups. He added two free throws and one jump shot — “baseline, about 10 to 15 feet, I guess” — to round out a school record night for both teams.
Then, showcasing one more bit of hustle, he ran from the spotlight.
“He’s a shy kid. He would never want the publicity,” said … [For more on The quietest 70 points in college basketball history, click here.]
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