In the world of sports, there are records that shouldn’t be broken. Well, last night in the small town of Grinnell, Iowa, Jack Taylor broke a seemingly impossible one. The sophomore guard scored a mind-boggling 138 points during the Division III Grinnell College basketball game against Faith Baptist Bible to break the all-NCAA point scoring record. No, he wasn’t playing a video game when his feat came to reality; he flat out shot the ball like a madman. He made 52-of-108 shots from the floor, including 27-of-71 attempts from 3-point land and also made 7-of-10 free throws. He broke the previous mark of 113 points set by Bevo Francis of Division II Rio Grande in 1954. The question I have to ask, was there any defense? The final score of the game was 179-104. As Taylor said in an interview on Sportscenter last night, “A lot of people are saying it wasn’t the most team-oriented thing to do…but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the encouragement and support from my teammates.”
Here's the interview from Good Morning America:
I think this is a mockery of the sport. Taylor will get his 15 minutes of fame and never be heard about again. This isn’t something coaches anywhere should encourage because the sport is about a team. Not one player, but five players. I don’t care if he had a “hot hand” last night because this performance is pointless. He’s not going to be getting any Division I offers or NBA scouts coming to his games. If you let any basketball player at any level shoot 108 times, a good percentage of them will probably make half their shots. What about basketball stars like Lebron James or Kobe Bryant? Heck, they might be able to put up a 150-point game. But you will never see it happen so don’t get your hopes up. The last question I ponder is, do we really compare this performance to unbelievable records like Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point performance, Joe Dimaggio’s 56-game hit streak or Wayne Gretzky’s 2,857 points mark? Absolutely Not! This kid is not a superstar and not the next Michael Jordan, he is some small-town kid from Wisconsin who temporarily put his tiny Iowa college on the map.
