Grinnell and Jack Taylor Don't Play Basketball

If you're a sports fan and you haven't heard of a kid named Jack Taylor by now then you've probably been living under a rock. Taylor is now a junior at Grinnell College and has eclipsed 100 points twice in the past two seasons which, to the every day person, is really impressive. But if you ask me, it's absolutely ridiculous that he has scored this much for a number of reasons.

For starters, the style Grinnell plays is not basketball. Say what you want about past coaches (namely Paul Westhead), but at the end of the day, Westhead ran a BALANCED offense. Yes there was a time limit he placed on when he wanted the first shot to be put up and it was as quick an offense as basketball fans have ever seen. At the end of the day, however, Loyola Marymount still played defense and distributed the ball well. What Grinnell head coach David Arseneault is doing is negative to the game.

Contested shots are a regular occurrence for Taylor

Look at the box score for Taylor's 138 point game last season. He put up 108 of his teams 136 shots. The next highest amount of field goals attempted by a Grinnell player in that game was six. Judging by that statistic it's not hard to believe that Taylor didn't record an assist that game. Throw in the fact that Taylor turned the ball over six times and we're looking at a laughable assist to turnover ratio. What Grinnell is doing is simply putting the ball in Taylor's hands and saying "Here, son, get us on Sportscenter." So what if they're winning? A lot of people would tell you that winning is everything, and that may be so, but if I'm a kid on Grinnell's team that's not named Jack Taylor then I'm transferring to play somewhere else or deciding not to play. Is it because I'm jealous that I'm not the one scoring 138 points? Not at all. I have grown up learning and watching fundamental basketball and a big part of that is passing and playing defense. Grinnell and Taylor do neither.

Personally, I think it's bad for the game and bad for the young basketball players in the world to showcase what Taylor is doing. 138 points is an impressive mark, we'll give the kid credit there. But it's how that mark is achieved that makes all the difference. It's upsetting that a coach would actually tell a team to give the ball to a certain player and let him go to work for a full 40 minute game. That's the kind of thing you see in cartoons when the show portrays a dad who wants his kid to be the star on a rec league team. That's not college basketball and every time Grinnell shows up on Sportscenter the only thing that is talked about is scoring. Where have the other aspects of the game gone?

To put it simply, I would be more impressed with Jack Taylor if he put up twenty points, grabbed five boards, and dished out five assists in a loss than doing whatever the heck he's doing now. Giving a kid that kind of freedom is just dumb. I don't care to hear any more about Grinnell and Jack Taylor. Sportscenter is a show that highlights sports, and what David Arseneault is doing at the division III level has nothing to do with the sport at all. This is not how the game was meant to be played.