If men's basketball head coach David Arseneault (Coach A) gathered the System naysayers in a room to explain the motivation behind his son's (Kid A) 34-assist bonanza-a crowded room, given the reaction-he might as well do it in Latin. Not a single person coaching in Division III basketball has the same approach as Grinnell's System mad scientist. And it's not even close. To fully appreciate the System requires a complete re-evaluation of what you think you know about basketball.
So when Kid A put up 34 assists last Saturday, it merely served as further proof that we aren't even on the same planet as our foes. Other teams idolize records as the rare stratospheric achievements of superior players. Saturday's game proves that we can break one practically whenever we want.
Self-serving? You better believe it. Coach A's got a highly calculated and highly successful program here, a major sports team actually succeeding at a school like Grinnell. To continue his run of winning seasons, he needs to give the limited number of recruits who can actually get into Grinnell good reason to spend four years here.
The reason? The chance to break unreachable statistical plateaus. Ever wanted to lead the nation in scoring with 30 points per game and still not feel like you're hogging the ball? Come to Grinnell. Want to dish out 34 assists when your team only makes a quarter of their threes? Come to Grinnell. Each group must put up their own mind-boggling set of statistics, both to get Grinnell press and to bring in the next class of great first-years.
"You have to inflate the egos," said Coach A, "so that they can become confident beyond what they think they could be ... Our team is going to be good because of our best players."
Instead of statistics playing a secondary role to the main goal of winning and losing, we're using them as a motivating factor. Apparently, 30 points a game convinces you that you can take on the world, and given John Grotberg's inability to stop shooting sometimes, I'm inclined to believe it.
There's still the sportsmanship issue, though. While the North Central coach told me he had no problem with the record, the objectors vocally emerged at the Mecca for small-college basketball, D3hoops.com.
"What Grinnell did on Saturday was take advantage of a weaker team and ... embarrass the Grinnell name and opponent," said one. "It's not about playing minutes, it's about going out of your way to intentionally break a record in a premeditated fashion," said another.
In standard basketball rhetoric, those arguments are valid. While Coach A can assert that he thinks about sportsmanship and never tries to run up the score, the fact that Grotberg took four three-pointers in the last two minutes of a 40-point win with Grinnell's five best players on the floor suggests his tactics are not foolproof. Because as far out of mainstream as Coach A might be, he still has to deal with the mainstream and play them 20 times a year. But that doesn't mean he should change.
The System works because it confounds and annoys basketball purists, turning statistical impossibilities into normal occurrences and leaving most fans skeptical, thinking, "Did they just do that?" For every record we break, we might receive 10 letters decrying our sportsmanship and one great recruit. Problematic? Yes. Entertaining? Yes. Worth it when the MWC tournament titles start to roll in? A thousand times yes. Somebody go and get Keith Chamberlain 30 blocks, stat.
Mark Japinga will now temporarily give his editor title to Chloe Moryl. She probably won't devote a whole page to men's basketball.
