Clay Moyle and son Caleb
Grinnell College is a small private liberal arts school in Iowa with a Division III men’s basketball team. I’d never heard of the school before one of its players, a five-foot-10 guard by the name of Jack Taylor, demolished the NCAA individual scoring record with an unbelievable 138-point outing against Faith Baptist Bible College last year.
Yes, you read that correctly, 138 points by a single player in a regulation college basketball game.
While playing 36 minutes in that game, Taylor launched an incredible 108 field goal attempts! I read that when he heard about the 108 shot attempt, Kobe Bryant said that if he’d known you could take that many shots in college he wouldn’t have gone straight to the NBA after high school.
Taylor converted on 52 of the 108 attempts, including 27 three-pointers, and added seven free throws to demolish the previous record held by Clarence “Bevo” Francis of Rio Grande College.
Francis scored 113 points against HillsdaleCollege way back on February 2, 1954 at a time when there was no such thing as a three-point shot. Who knows how many of “Bevo’s” made field goals may have been beyond three point range had such a line existed at the time.
Additionally, there was no shot clock when “Bevo” played. Francis actually scored 116 in a game a little over a year earlier, but since that was against a junior college that wasn’t considered an official college record.
Jack Taylor
Jack Taylor and GrinnellCollege garnered national headlines again this season when the guard racked up 109 points in the team’s second game of the season in Rochester, Minnesota against CrossroadsCollege. This time, he exceeded the century mark in only 29 minutes of play while connecting on 35 of 70 field goals and adding 15 foul shots. Twenty-four of the 35 field goals he made were from beyond the three-point arc, where he connected on half of his 48 three-point field goal attempts.
When I read about Taylor’s scoring accomplishments, I wondered why the opposition wouldn’t simply assign a defender with the task of preventing him from receiving passes all game long to keep him from being able to touch the ball so often in the first place.
Well, it turns out it isn’t quite as simple as that thanks to Grinnell College’s crazy “system,” that is, unless the opposition is not only willing to sacrifice a man to shadow Taylor all over the floor when Grinnell has the ball, but even when they are on offense themselves as well.
Let me try and explain what I mean by providing some background concerning what Grinnell’s coach, David Arseneault, refers to as their “system.”
Arseneault became Grinnell’s head coach in 1989. Prior to that date, the school had suffered through 26 consecutive losing seasons. The team went 3-19 and 7-15 during his first two seasons at the helm to stretch their losing streak to 28 seasons. The team suffered from significant player attrition in both of those seasons and the program endured quite a bit of ridicule as a result of its long-standing mediocrity. There was a lack of motivation on the part of the players and it was obviously very difficult for the coach to recruit any talented ballplayers to play at a school with such a losing tradition.
Long story short, Arseneault devised a system that relies heavily upon the idea of platooning players in waves while pressing all over the court to create turnovers and wear down the opposition. At the same time, Arseneault borrowed from the system Paul Westhead installed at Loyola Marymount in the 1980s and focuses on scoring as often as possible from three-point range to outscore the opposition.
There’s a lot more to it than that, but if one really wants to gain a better understanding of the “system” you can purchase Arseneault’s book titled ‘The Running Game’ on-line for $15 and learn all about it. But, for the purpose of this article, I’ll tell you that Arseneault believes there are four keys to success and that if his team accomplishes each of the following they will almost surely win:
1. Force their opponents to run up and down the court 150 times (One trip equaling the crossing of both hash marks on the court).
2. Shoot the ball 94 times with one-half of those shots coming from behind the three-point line.
3. Rebound 33 percent of missed shot attempt on the offensive end of the floor.
4. Make the opposition turn the ball over more than 32 times.
Now, those four keys might not sound all that crazy, but they are so obsessed with maximizing the number of ball possessions over the course of the game that they don’t even mind giving up an easy lay-in on the back end of their press so long as it occurs within ten seconds, they had at least one chance to steal the ball before a shot was attempted and they limited the opponent to a single shot.
The team’s “designated shooter” doesn’t play much defense and apparently will often not even cross midcourt to play defense. Instead, he often position’s himself to receive a long outlet pass and immediately fire up a three-point shot.
Thus, if the opponent’s intent is to prevent Grinnell’s “designated shooter” from getting the ball they really have to keep one player in the backcourt with Taylor while they are on offense.
Interestingly, in the game where Grinnell’s leading scorer, Taylor, scored 138, there was a player on the opposing team who scored 71 (on 34-44 shooting from the field) with the bulk of those field goals coming on uncontested lay-ins from passes over the top of Grinnell’s full-court press.
One article I came across indicated that it’s also not uncommon for Grinnell to intentionally foul its opponents once they are in the bonus in order to give up foul shots in exchange for an opportunity to get the ball back sooner and attempt another three-point shot.
On the offensive end, Grinnell’s objective is to get their best shooter, the “designated shooter,” at least two good looks at the basket and for that individual to make a shot attempt beyond the arc within the first ten-twelve seconds of the shot clock.
And, if the shot misses and a teammate gathers an offensive rebound, they will typically forego an easy shot inside and pass it out to Taylor so he can launch another three-pointer. Apparently, it’s not unlikely that Taylor could attempt as many as six three-pointers during two offensive possessions.
So, what is the result of this madness?
Well, the first year Arseneault began to employ the “system” the team went 11-11. Since then, Grinnell has experienced just seven losing seasons in the past 21, and Arseneault has amassed a winning record at the school while guiding his team to five conference championships.
A review of conference statistics after four games this year shows that Grinnell is averaging 134.2 points per game while giving up an average of 106.8. The Fox Squirrels (yes, the Fox Squirrels)are presently undefeated despite the fact their opponents are shooting 61 percent from the field!
Grinnell has taken a total of 233 three-pointers in those four games while nobody else in their conference has yet attempted as many as 100.
On the defensive end of things, Grinnell is averaging 16.8 steals per game in comparison to its opponent’s average of 7.0.
Again, the reason the Fox Squirrels are able to get so many steals is that they double team and gamble so much. They don’t mind giving up easy lay-ins or easy shots when they fail to make a steal.
Through four games, Grinnell had only turned the ball over 46 times (11.5/game) while their opponents suffered 114 turnovers (28.5/game), a differential of 17 turnovers a game!
On an individual basis, their star player, a.k.a. “designated shooter”, Taylor, had scored 213 points, an average of 53.2 points a game. That was despite the fact after scoring 71 and 109 in the team’s first two games of the season, Taylor was held to only three points in the Fox Squirrels third game against Wartburg College, who had two or three players assigned to defend him the entire game and still lost 88-79.
The “system” sounds absolutely nuts but there is no denying the fact that it’s worked wonders for GrinnellCollege in comparison to their previous efforts. And, they’ve lead the country in scoring in something like 16 or 17 times of the past 19 years.
Furthermore, I learned that Arseneault now has as many as 200 users of his “system” among basketball coaches at all levels, including this year Klahowya.
Crazy stuff, but it must be entertaining as all get out.