College Basketball Team Sets Record With 111 Three-Point Attempts, Doubles Up Opponent While Refusing To Take Any Two-Point Shots

Grinnell College set an NCAA men's basketball record on Thursday night and it was absolutely ridiculous. Almost unfathomable, really.

Pull up from way downtown! (Photo courtesy: Grinnell College Athletics)

The Pioneers did not attempt a single two-point shot the entire evening. In doing so, Grinnell attempted 111 (!!) three-point shots, which is the most of all-time.

The small Division-III school in central Iowa doubled-up its opponent, Emmaus Bible College, and won the game 124-67. Of the 124 points score, 120 of them came from beyond the arc, with the other four on free throws. The Pioneers went 40-of-111 from the field and shot 51.1% from the field in the second half.

While their 40 three-pointers made came very close to the NCAA record, they fell just two made 3s short of the 42 that they made against Emmaus in 2018. Poor Emmaus...

Grinnell runs a very unique system that is based on Loyola Marymount head coach Paul Westhead's offense in the 1980s. It was fine-tuned by David Arsenault in Iowa, and his son David Arsenault Jr. is currently the head coach running his dad's system.

Grinnell College shoots and shoots and shoots some more.

The philosophy is predicated on quick shots, crashing the offensive glass and constant, never-wavering full-court press. Three-pointers are the priority and it led to Jack Taylor making history with a 138-point game in 2012.

It also led to history in 2022. Grinnell did something that nobody had ever done before.

"It was something that I had wondered if it was possible for probably the last decade, just thinking about it, exactly how it would work, would it be actually even feasible to do this for an entire game, and if you did it, what would your shooting percentage look like? What could potentially be some of the other benefits in trying to play a game where you only attempted 3-point shots?" said Arseneault Jr. to The Des Moines Register’s Tommy Birch. "It was certainly an interesting experiment."

Nobody accidentally stepped on the three-point line, nobody sub-consciously put up a quick two-point shot after securing an offensive rebound, and nobody forgot. It was all threes, all game.