Who’s Scored Most College Points?

On this episode of Daily Sports History, we spotlight Jack Taylor's extraordinary 138-point game for Grinnell College in 2012, setting the record for the most points scored in a single NCAA basketball game. Dive into the strategy behind his historic performance, the reaction from the sports world, and its place in basketball history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On November twentieth, twenty twelve, the Grigel Pioneers were facing
off against Faith Baptist Bible College in a Division three matchup,
and little did either team know this would be a
historic moment in a moment where Division III basketball got
put on the map when Jack Taylor of Grenell College

(00:20):
set the record for the most points in an NCAA
game by a single player with one hundred and thirty eight,
putting himself and his school on the map as many
have never heard of either, making national news that we're
going talked about him today on Daily Sports History. Welcome

(00:45):
to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as
you daily learn about more sports history, increasing your sports knowledge.
As today we learn about high scoring affairs in college basketball,
and today's trivic question the listen out for is what
was the previous record for the most points in an
NCUBLEA basketball game. Now, we've talked about previous high scores,

(01:10):
as we talked about BiVO Francis, who scored one hundred
and thirteen points in a single game. We also talked
about Austin Carr, who scored over sixty points in n
a C double a March Madness Game, and we even
covered Wilt Chamberlain's one hundred point game in the NBA.
And today we're going to talk about the most points
scored in the NC Double A game. Now, normally when
we say NC Double A, everyone thinks about Division one. Now,

(01:33):
the most points scored in a Division one game was
Kevin Bradshaw, who did so with US International against Loyola
Mayormount in nineteen ninety one, where he scored seventy two.
And there have been four players to score over one
hundred points in college basketball. We've already talked about. We
already talked about Bo Francis. There's also Frank Selvie who

(01:56):
led Forum to a victory, who scored one hundred point
for Forum in nineteen fifty four, and JJ Cover of
Wayland Baptist University scored one hundred points in twenty nineteen.
But today we're here to talk about another man who
made this list twice in Jack Taylor of Granoll College. Now,
if you think that NCAA Division II basketball is kind

(02:20):
of a joke, you might be mistaken. Now, there are
some great players at this level, and we've seen some
great NBA players come from small schools such as Dennis Rahman,
Ben Wallace, and Scottie Pippen all played for schools that
were not Division one, and even Duncan Robinson, whose places
for the Miami Heat today came from a Division III

(02:41):
school and having worked with Division three basketball coaches, there
are some great teams and great play being done. I've
watched plenty of it, and I'm amazed. Most Division three
basketball players can play any regular person out of the gym.
So don't think that these players are just coming to
play because they have no other options. These are great levels.

(03:02):
So let's start with who is Jack Taylor. Well, he
grew up loving basketball, and he grew up in the
Kobe Bryant era, so he tried to model his game
after Kobe Bryant. And though he attended basketball camps at
places like Duke and Stanford and would go on to
play high school basketball in Wisconsin and letter four straight years,
he only grew to be about five to ten, which

(03:23):
makes it incredibly hard in basketball wise to get a
whole lot of looks. His senior year in high school,
he averaged over twenty points and almost five assists, hitting
over forty percent from three point range, and was named
his conference Player of the Year and was named All State.
Although he got some interest from Division one school like
Columbia and some Division two schools, he didn't get any

(03:44):
athletic scholarship, so he decided to tend the mercer Berg Academy,
which is a postgraduate school where they helped players get
in a more positive light athletically, although he struggled as
within nine games there he tore his acl and his meniscus,
which means he missed the rest of the season, and

(04:05):
he decided later to go to Wisconsin Lacrosse. Now he
was still kind of recovering, so he came in as
a reserve role and he only averaged seven points his
first season at least Wisconsin Lacrosse, and he actually says
this is when he really started to get frustrated with basketball,
as he was struggling to recover from his knee surgery
and struggling just with playing time. So he went to

(04:29):
He tided to transfer to a new school, which was
Granall University, who had been recruiting him since he was
out of high school and even when he was at
the mercer Berg Academy, but he always went somewhere else.
He finally gave in and went to the Granall University
now Granel College was started in eighteen forty six and
was formerly known as Iowa College and is what and

(04:51):
they follow an open curriculum, which means there's not a
prescribed class list and students are able to guide their
education for themselves. They they started playing basketball in nineteen hundred,
but they didn't win their first conference title till nineteen
forty one. But what really made Jack want to go
to Granol is they were running something called the Granol system,

(05:12):
which was a new kind of offense that sometimes referred
as just the system. It's a fast paced offense that
the coach at Grannel College had instituted, David Arsenal, and
it's a variation of the run and gun offense which
was made popular by Leola Merimount in the nineteen eighties.
And it focused on three point shooting and full court
press and allowed frequent substitutions. So Jack loved that opportunity

(05:37):
to score a lot and shoot as many three pointers
as he could. And Garnell showed that this system really worked,
as they had led the NCUBLEA in all levels of
scoring for seventeen of the past nineteen seasons and in
two thousand and three two thousand and four season, they
ranked second in NC DOUBLEA history, averaging one hundred and
twenty six point two points a game. He actually led

(05:59):
the team in scoring with averaging twenty three point five
points after just thirteen point five minutes a game in
just the first two games he played there, But the
Grnell's coach wanted to get him some more playing time
and decided to do that on November twentieth, twenty twelve.
This was a home game for Grannell and they came

(06:20):
in with a three to zero record and Faith Baptists
had not won a game that season, and Grnell's coach
decided to make Jack Taylor the focus of this game
as he was the only player on the team to
play more than fifteen minutes, as he played thirty six
minutes and they started out fast and they did not
look back as Jack scored fifty eight points in the

(06:41):
first half and giving them the lead eighty five to
forty six. But he wasn't done. He came back the
second half and did even better, scoring eighty points, making
eighteen to three pointers in the second half, including seven
consecutively during a two minute stretch. During one stretch of
the game, he scored twenty eight consecutive points, all by himself,

(07:05):
a Division III record. He also set the record for
the most three pointers and this all led to him
scoring a total of one hundred and thirty eight points,
hitting a total of twenty seven three pointers the entire game,
and he set NCAA records for the most three field
goals in a game, the most three point attempts in
a game, the most field goals, the most field goal attempts,

(07:25):
and his eighty points and a half was also a record,
and before this, his highest score in high school was
forty eight points. He went above and beyond and broke
Bibo France's record set in nineteen fifty four of one
hundred and thirteen points, leading them to a victory one
seventy nine to one oh four. Now Faith Baptist College

(07:47):
tried to keep up and had David Larson, who scored
seventy points in this game, all without a three point shot,
as they were trying to keep up the best they could.
Now this game got national news as his hero Kobe
Bryant Lebron James All posted on social media about this topic.

(08:07):
He got to talk to ESPN and got to appear
on Good Morning America Jimmy Kimball Live. He received over
three hundred email requests for interviews from all over the
world and Pizza Hutt actually did a promotion where they
you could buy a pizza for one dollar and thirty
eight cents and the following game they faced off against
William Penn and ESPN and multiple other media outlets came

(08:30):
to watch this game where he only scored twenty one
points in a losing effort, and unfortunately, another injury took
the rest of the season from him as he broke
his radius bone in your forearm, and he would have
to wait till next season where he's coming back to
try to lead the nation in scoring. In the season
opening game, he scored seventy one points, and then the

(08:51):
following game against Crosswold College, he passed the one hundred
point mark again, scoring one hundred and nine points, and
he would go on to finish the season as the
nation's leading scorer, averaging twenty eight point eight points, making
five to three point shots a game and be named
to the All Midwest Conference second team, and his following
senior year, he would also lead the Nations, scoring twenty

(09:13):
eight point four points and be named first team All Conference.
And upon graduating, he did enter the NBA Draft, although
he did go undrafted, but he did put on a
showcase at Las Vegas that featured many international and Europepean leagues.
But by two thousand and six he was no longer
interested in basketball. He would go on to get married
and have kids, and he owns a video production company

(09:35):
and is a local TV personality in Wisconsin and has
gone on to live a life outside the limelight. And
I'm willing to bet if you walked past Jack Taylor
on the street, you wouldn't realize he was one of
the greatest scorers in Division three and TAA history. And
if you want to learn more about small college basketball,

(09:56):
check out the Small College Basketball Podcast, where Chris takes
you through Division two, Division three, NAIA, USCAA, and NCCAA levels,
highlighting the major moments in milestones that often go forgotten
at these smaller schools where there's great basketball being played
all beyond just Division one basketball. We'll put a link

(10:19):
in the description below for you to check that out.
And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a
like review wherever you're listening. That really helps us and
when someone finds our podcast to know that it is
a great show for them to check out and come
back tomorrow for more daily sports history. And did you
catch the answer to today's Tribe question what was the

(10:40):
previous record for the most points in an NCAA basketball game?
And the answer was Bbo Francis with Rio College scoring
one hundred and thirteen points in nineteen fifty four. The

(11:01):
then and the Wastent, Stupid,