Jack Taylor drives to the bucket for two of his NCAA-record 138 points. / Cory Hall, USA TODAY Sports

Here's a question that's never been asked before in the history of college basketball, and nobody thought ever would be.

So how'd the kid feel the day after he scored 138 points in a game?

"It's definitely been overwhelming," Jack Taylor -- Superman for a night -- said over the phone Wednesday from Grinnell College in Iowa. "It feels like I almost woke up in a different world."

Everyone wanted to know how he felt. The interviews for him and his coach had started at 5:30 a.m. and gone all day, broken only by his calculus and introduction to Christianity classes. "It was a little bit harder to focus today," he said. "But I was able to make it.

"It's hard for reality to kick in."

Some feats make you cheer in admiration. This one makes you gasp in wonder.

How does one sophomore guard take 108 shots in a game -- or one every 20 seconds he is on the floor? How does he put up 71 three-point attempts and produce a line score with 52 field goals and no assists?

The guy playing on the other side for Faith Baptist Bible, David Larson. How does he score 70 points in a game -- and his team loses by 75?

How does any of that happen?

And should it?

To understand a game the likes of which the sport had never seen before, we turn to three men. Taylor, Grinnell coach David Arseneault and Faith Baptist Bible coach Brian Fincham. Let them explain what happened when Grinnell won 179-104, using 20 players. Nineteen of them combined for 41 points; Jack Taylor provided the other 138.


Warming up, Taylor knew he only wanted to do better than he had done in his first two games.The transfer from Wisconsin-La Crosse had scored well, with 19 and 28 points, but couldn't hit the ocean from the beach, shooting 26.8%.

Arseneault's way is to constantly rotate units, and Taylor had come off the bench both games. Faith Baptist was his first start.

"I had shot pretty poorly coming into this game, so I knew I was going to get a couple more shots because my teammates wanted to get me going offensively," he said.

Not that anything really remarkable was expected. The most Taylor had scored in one game was 48 points, in high school back in Black River Falls, Wis.

Then again, this is Grinnell, where Arseneault's fire-at-will strategy has produced the nation's top offense in 17 of the last 19 seasons. Last year, the Pioneers went 18-5 and averaged 110.9 points -- nearly seven points higher than the NBA-leading Denver Nuggets. They press, double-team and shoot as if there is a fire drill in progress.

"Organized chaos," Arseneault said, "is the term I would use."

Fincham had barely considered Taylor in his defensive preparations. He was more worried about Griffin Lentsch, who had set a Division III mark last season with 89 points. Grinnell is to scoring records what Cape Canaveral is to spaceflight.

"I assumed if anybody was going to do anything, they would focus on him and not Jack," Fincham said. "(Taylor) really wasn't one that stood out going into the game."


"At halftime," Fincham said, "I knew that No. 3 kid was scoring quite a bit."

But he had no idea how much. Neither did the No. 3 kid.

"I thought I had about 30," Taylor said. "When coach came in and said I had 58, I knew something special was going on."

With the score sheet in his hand, Arseneault gave his team the number and waited for the reaction.

"The place erupted. The guys immediately started diagramming their own little plays on how they were going to get him open. That kind of unselfishness is what every coach loves."


In one stretch, Taylor buried six three-pointers in six consecutive possessions. "Each one was more difficult than the previous one," Arseneault said. "The crowd was losing control. Our bench was losing control. There was just pandemonium when that sixth one went in."

The issue of the game was long settled, and all that was left to decide was how high in the stratosphere Jack Taylor would soar. Just how much history would 1,014 fans see?

"I can't really explain it," he said Wednesday. "I was in a zone. I guess it was one of those rare moments."

And his teammates, reduced to constant passers in this one-man show? "They kept encouraging me to shoot the ball, and they were going to keep feeding me."

Arseneault: "I was trying to enjoy it as much as I could while I still managed the game, because I knew this was the type of performance that is never going to be replicated."


First, Taylor shook hands with the Faith Baptist players. "I think they were in just as much shock as I was."

Imagine how Larson must have felt. "I never would have imagined I'd have a guy score 70," Fincham said. "Let alone lose a game where he scored 70."

Taylor then had a few quick words with his parents and headed for interviews. He wasn't done until 1 a.m. Arseneault went home to study a little of the game tape and at 2 a.m. watched Taylor go on that three-point spree one more time.

"He made it look so easy," he said.


"It didn't really feel real to me," Taylor said, "but then I woke up this morning and a couple of my friends told me Kobe (Bryant) had talked about my game. That kind of woke me up a little bit."

The question to ponder in the light of day was if Grinnell had crossed any lines, leaving Taylor out there to set records while pounding an opponent by 70-plus points. Also playing 36 minutes, while no one else on his team played more than 15. At what stage, if any, do the Pioneers' video game numbers become wrong?

Fincham seemed the man to ask. If Taylor was the shooter, Fincham's team was the shootee.

"We're somewhat familiar with Grinnell and what they try to do and that they try to set records," he said. "Honestly, purely as a fan of basketball, it was impressive to watch some of the shots he was hitting. I really wasn't too upset about it. We were happy for Jack. I understand he's a good kid."

You play Grinnell, you know what you get. And it can go both ways. The Pioneers once lost a game 167-148. But it works lots of times, too. Arseneault has won five conference championships, with a career record of 286-230. And he routinely gets 20 players into the game.

So the losing coach wasn't upset. Taylor's teammates weren't upset. And for one day, Grinnell -- enrollment of 1,600 -- was bigger than Duke. Not a lot of downsides to that.

"Ninety percent of what people are saying today is positive," Arseneault said. "They look at the kid and see it's a special performance. We're not trying to embarrass anybody; we're trying to have fun. Nobody said the game has to be played a certain way."


Taylor said he knew the interviews would end soon and the nation's attention would go back to the big guys. "I'm going to enjoy the moment while it lasts," said the guard, who currently carries a 61.7 scoring average.

Fincham said his team would move on, with the famous game film as a keepsake. "I'm not sure we're going to watch it over Thanksgiving or not."

Grinnell plays again Sunday, and Arseneault said he'd probably give a few extra minutes and shots to ... Lentsch, because he just had his record shattered.

But first the coach wanted to savor the kind of night that probably could only happen for players at Grinnell College.

"They can say to the grandkids one day, 'I played for a team where a guy scored 138 points.' That's something you're not getting at your average basketball school."

Copyright 2015 USATODAY.com

Read the original story: How 138-point kid Jack Taylor played Superman for a night

Most Viewed

Photo Galleries



Buy/Sell Marketplace
Search all Classified ads. Sell your stuff.