The Untouchables is a 10-part series spotlighting college basketball's most unbreakable records. Up next is No. 7: Loyola Marymount's 186 points in a single game.
When an NCAA staffer asked Dale Marini for input on how to improve the format of college basketball's official scorebook in the late 1980s, the Loyola Marymount scorekeeper responded with more of a plea than a suggestion.
He urged the NCAA to make score sheets that went beyond 110 points because the quick-strike Lions routinely roared past that mark with ease.
"I was writing in the margins, in the borders, all over the place," Marini recalled with a chuckle. "I was doing everything imaginable to try to keep up."
New score sheets introduced the following year went up to 139 points, but that still often wasn't enough to chronicle LMU's assault on the record books. Under run-and-gun guru Paul Westhead and successor Jay Hillock, the Lions blitzed opponents for 140 or more points 20 times from 1986 to 1991 and elevated the Division I single-game scoring record to a level that will be difficult for anyone else to challenge.
The most unfathomable part of the record point total LMU piled up Jan. 5, 1991 in a 186-140 shellacking of U.S. International is the Lions left frustrated they didn't score more. They thought 200 was within reach that night after rolling to 150 or more points in their previous four matchups with the San Diego-based Division I lightweight, which ran the same revved-up system as the Lions.
"You can ask nine or 10 guys who played in that game, and there was more disappointment than anything else that we didn't get to 200," LMU forward Tom Peabody said. "That really was the thought process going in. After scoring 181 the previous year against USIU, we thought we were still at a level where, even though we didn't have the same horses, there was no reason we couldn't score 200."
The origin of the fast-breaking style LMU made famous was Westhead's stint coaching in Puerto Rico in the early 1970s. Westhead adopted an up-tempo approach after watching players bury 22-foot jump shots in transition with ease and realizing they were getting better looks at the basket than his teams were after a flurry of passes, cuts and screens.
More from "The Untouchables" Series:• No. 10: North Carolina's 56-game home winning streak over Clemson
• No. 9: Butler guard Darnell Archey's 85 straight made free throws
• No. 8: Cincinnati and Bradley play Division I's only seven-overtime game
• No. 7: Loyola Marymount piles up 186 points in a single game
• No. 6: June 8
• No. 5: June 11
• No. 4: June 12
• No. 3: June 13
• No. 2: June 14
• No. 1: June 15
Unable to survive a rift with Magic Johnson during his stint as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, Westhead lost his job less than two years after winning the 1980 NBA title in his debut season. The Chicago Bulls also fired Westhead after one season in 1983, leaving him searching for a college that would have enough patience with his non-traditional tactics to give him the chance to resuscitate his career.
It's a testament to both the talent Westhead assembled and the preparation he demanded that LMU produced video-game-like numbers during his five-year tenure at the school.
A freewheeling, rapid-fire system and a campus less than two miles from the beach helped LMU attract future standouts Corey Gaines, Bo Kimble, Hank Gathers and Jeff Fryer. Just as importantly, those guys bought into Westhead's approach, giving maximum effort during every unusual summer conditioning drill he concocted so later they'd be in good enough shape to wear down opposing teams with their tempo and pressure.
They built leg strength and endurance by sprinting up sand dunes until they were gasping for air. They developed stamina and recovery time running ladders of 220- and 440-yard sprints with progressively shorter intervals in between. They even honed their defensive instincts by face-guarding a teammate like a cornerback for 92 feet while an assistant coach tried to throw a football to the receiver.
"It was somewhat unusual, it was a little bit crazy, but it worked," Peabody said. "There were points in our games when the other team would miss shots by four feet or shoot two straight air balls. You'd see them grabbing at their pants, and it was over. They could not keep up any longer."
In the final three seasons of Westhead's tenure before he returned to the NBA, LMU emerged as the nation's most beloved underdog, amassing a 70-18 record, winning four NCAA tournament games and averaging at least 110 points per game each year. Success was more sporadic the following season without Westhead on the bench or Kimble, Gathers and Fryer on the roster, but the Lions still had the firepower for occasional scoring onslaughts.
The most memorable of those was the 186-point bombardment against U.S. International, a team Westhead annually scheduled during that era in part to give LMU the chance to take aim at the scoring record.
Unlike other opponents who deadened the pace of the game against LMU, U.S. International eagerly ran with the Lions. Gulls coach Gary Zarecky installed a fast-break offense similar to LMU's because he believed it would help his program generate the publicity, attendance and revenue it needed to one day be more competitive at the Division I level.
U.S. International received lucrative payouts to play high-profile opponents on the road because their entertaining style of play guaranteed a large crowd, but there was a downside to being college basketball's favorite punching bag. In 1989 alone, the Gulls lost 173-101 to Oklahoma and 166-101 to Arkansas, a product of not having sufficient talent to play at a fast pace against elite teams the way LMU could.
"If you don't have money, you have to create interest," Zarecky said. "When you're a little school and you have to play top teams, you don't have a prayer. But interest was created, we got the university more money and we got better talent. And when we played teams of our size, we had a winning record against them. Our style beat those teams."
U.S. International lost all seven meetings with LMU by double figures before declaring for bankruptcy and closing its doors in 1991, but the Gulls and Lions definitely produced some attention-grabbing box scores. The statistics from LMU's 186-140 victory alone still turn heads more than two decades later.
• U.S. International star Kevin Bradshaw erupted for 72 points on 23 of 59 shooting to break the record for points against a Division I opponent, eclipsing Pete Maravich's 69 points against Alabama in 1970.
• Terrell Lowery's 16 assists helped LMU set a school record with 40, four shy of Colorado's Division I record set in an overtime game against George Mason in 1995.
• The two teams combined for 326 points, five short of the Division I record they set the previous season in a 181-150 LMU victory. Nine of the 10 players on LMU's roster scored in double figures.
"The biggest thing I remember was how fun it was," former LMU forward Christian Scott said. "We were trying to get to 200. That was the ultimate goal. It sounds ridiculous now, but back then we were too dumb to know better."
The legacy of that game is that it was a last hurrah of sorts, a final showcase for LMU's unprecedented scoring prowess. In the two years after Westhead's departure to coach the Denver Nuggets, the erosion of the Lions' talent, discipline and commitment to the program's signature up-tempo system led to the firing of Hillock and the decline of the program.
Slower-paced games and scores in the 50s and 60s made Marini's job far easier the past two decades, but the scorekeeper cherishes his memories of watching Westhead's teams run opponents out of the gym.
He jokes about needing three or four pencils per game to fill out the score sheet. He remembers giving up on recording the time baskets were scored out of fear of missing the next play. And he needles longtime shot clock operator Armando Paz for having "the most meaningless job in the world."
"He didn't have to show up," Marini joked. "Nobody would have missed him."
That was the beauty of LMU basketball at the time. It rendered the shot clock operator irrelevant, overburdened the scorekeeper and kept fans entertained from tipoff until the final buzzer.