With a little help from his friends
Posted: Monday, December 10, 2007 8:23 AM
Filed Under:
Records
If VMI is the D-I version of a high-powered offense, then Grinnell College runs on rocket fuel.
And it shot David N. Arsenault right into the NCAA record books -- with the help of his teammates.
Arsenault broke the all-division record for assists in a game Sunday, dishing 34 in a 151-112 win over North Central University of Minnesota. That’s better than Sherman Douglas, Avery Johnson and any other player who’s stepped on a court.
They had to work at it, though. After all, no assist record is made with only the guy making the passes. He’s dependent upon his teammates.
According to the AP story, Grinnell changed up its approach when they found out how Arsenault had 14 assists at halftime. So he dished 20 in the second half, and according to this box score, 12 in the final 10 minutes when Grinnell was already leading by 30.
Two things: Good thing this isn’t the New England Patriots. There would be issues with this style of play. But I digress.
One also wonders if he got a little love from the home-town scorer. Perhaps. I’ll simply gape at the 34 assists and wonder how many of the 600 people at the game know they were watching a bit of history.
(Arsenault ended the game with an assist rate of 68.0, which is assists divided by number of field goals made while Arsenault was on the court. That number, as you might guess, is ridiculously high. Kenpom.com’s ARate leader for the season is East Carolina’s Darrell Jenkins at 51.6, through Monday’s games.)
Grinnell, a small school about 50 miles east of Des Moines in central Iowa, has been garnering headlines for years with their all-out style of play. For more than a dozen years, they’ve been running their version of the run-and-gun, which sees them shoot more than 50 three-pointers a game. Schools like VMI, which changed its offensive philosophy last season, do something similar, but Grinnell is a little different in that it uses 15-17 players, all in short shifts and isn’t dependent on the talent available. The Pioneers play everyone.
The result is an offense that has set all-division records for points in a season (126.2, in 2003-04) and consecutive games with at least 100 points (28, in 2002-03). Other ridiculous numbers? Grinnell once attempted 135 field goals in a game (it had 129 on Sunday), made 32 three-pointers in a game and scored 149 in a losing effort.
(It’s hard to imagine other teams besting these numbers, but it’s true. D-II Troy once took 190 shots in a 1992 game against DeVry (Ga.) and made 102 of them. In the same game, they attempted 109 threes, making 51. Last season, Lincoln (Pa.)’s Sami Wylie hit 21 three-pointers by himself, scored 69 points in a 201-78 win. If all this reminds you of Paul Westhead at Loyola-Marymount, you’d be right. Westhead’s 1990 team with Bo Kimble and Hank Gathers averaged 122.4 ppg. )
And they say teams can’t shoot anymore…
