(WHO) – It doesn’t seem possible, but we promise you it’s confirmed. A college basketball player out of Iowa made sports history Tuesday night and he will no doubt be the topic of a lot of debate on sports talk radio the next few days.
Jack Taylor, of nearby Grinnell College, scored 138 points, that’s right, Taylor, by himself scored 138. Needless to say, Grinnell beat Faith Baptist 179-104.
This is the sophomore guard’s first year with NCAA Division III school Grinnell. He transferred to the school from the University of Wisconsin Lacrosse.
Up until Tuesday’s game, he was having a pretty average season. In his first two games, Taylor scored 19 and 28 points respectively. Things definitely changed on Tuesday, Taylor took 108 shots and scored 138 points, smashing the previous NCAA record for the most points scored in a game by 25 points. The previous record of 113 was set in 1954 by Bevo Francis.
Taylor’s scoring doesn’t just beat the NCAA record it also tops the NBA. Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in an NBA game in 1962.
The previous scoring record at Grinnell College was 89 points set last season by Griffin Lentsch.
Here’s how Taylor did it: he made 52 of a staggering 108 shots with a quick-trigger offense. He shot every 20 seconds, making 27 threes and just 7 points from the free throw line. More remarkably, he somehow took 71 three point shots.
Taylor’s record had him trending on twitter, at one point ranking #4 worldwide, and up until his big night, he didn’t even have an account. In his first tweet he said, quote “with my big game tonight I had to create a twitter lol god is good! So good.”
Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and ESPN’s Stuart Scott all commented on the feat after word got out. The video of the game got so many hits online it crashed the website for a time.
With all the attention, Taylor obviously had his share of critics, the biggest one…Why didn’t he pass the ball?
Taylor told Channel 13, it was his teammates idea to keep his scoring streak going. “Come half-time I had 58 points, but my teammates were really un-selfish and happy and wanted to continue getting me the ball to see if I could go for a record. So it was a blessing to have the teammates and the coaching that I have, to believe in me, to keep feeding me the ball, it was all up to them.”
