Shoot to Thrill

Life moves at a leisurely pace in this town of 9,000 near the Skunk River in central Iowa. A horse and buggy wouldn’t seem out of place on the tree-lined streets dotted with older, wooden houses.

David Arseneault moved his family here 14 years ago, in part to escape the fast lane of his native Boston.

What Arseneault didn’t figure on when he became the men’s basketball coach at Grinnell College was that he would establish his own rat race on the court.

“I’ve been told it’s like five mice being let out of a shoebox,” Arseneault said.

That’s a fairly accurate description of the frenetic style of play at Grinnell, where high academic standards are matched only by the eye-popping numbers rung up by the Pioneer basketball squad.

A college team hasn’t played at this pace since Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble and run-and-gun maestro Paul Westhead steered Loyola Marymount on a breakneck ride into NCAA history more than a decade ago.

Grinnell, a Division III team, is averaging 130.4 points a game, better than last season when it set an NCAA all-division record of 124.9 -- topping the old mark of 122.4 set by Loyola Marymount in 1990. The Pioneers, 11-5 overall and 6-3 in the Midwest Conference, have led all NCAA levels in scoring and three-point baskets for the last 10 seasons.

With a strategy based on frequent substitutions, shooting quickly from three-point range, crashing the offensive boards and pressing full court, Arseneault has created a version of the game that pushes the envelope in every sense. Trying to keep up with Grinnell can be hazardous to your health, as several game officials have found.

Arseneault, 49, developed his system as a way to increase player participation and revive interest in a program that was downtrodden when he arrived in 1989. Home games at 1,000-seat Darby Gym have routinely sold out since Grinnell players voted in 1993 to permanently adopt a running style, which Arseneault tinkers with on occasion.

“We’re trying to perfect chaos,” he said.

Some are shocked when they see Grinnell play for the first time. The Pioneers substitute in waves, sending in a new set of players at the first whistle after 35 seconds, a pattern that has prompted some to label the team’s brand of basketball “hockey on hardwood.”

Fresh legs are needed because Grinnell usually presses the entire game, a defensive strategy that causes turnovers but also leads to easy baskets for opponents. Grinnell forces an average of 24.5 turnovers, which helps make up for opponents shooting 62.5% from the field.

The Pioneers average 65.2 three-point shots, making 22.5. They have launched as many as 83 three-pointers this season and twice made 31, one short of their division record set in 1997. They scored 160 points in their opener and gave up more than that Dec. 11 in their most publicized game, a 162-110 loss to Drake, a Division I team that had little trouble breaking Grinnell’s press.

“We’ve never experienced anything like that,” Drake center Greg Danielson told the Des Moines Register after helping his team set the school record for most points in a game. Said teammate Lonnie Randolph: “You don’t even play like that out on the playground.”

Although Grinnell players were disappointed they made only 23 of 73 three-pointers in a game that drew national media attention, they say they wouldn’t trade the experience of playing in Arseneault’s system for more prestige elsewhere.

“I like it because it’s allowed a group of guys who were not heavily recruited to compete with more highly touted, athletic players,” junior guard Steve Wood said.

Wood was a pass-first point guard for a successful high school team in Peoria, Ill. At Grinnell, he averages a team-leading 24.6 points and came within a basket last season of leading all Division III players with a 26.9 average.

Eight players have double-figure scoring averages for Grinnell, which has no roster limit and started the season with 19 players. At least 17 players have appeared in every game, and no one had played more than 22 minutes until Wood played 33 minutes Jan. 25 in a 150-149, triple-overtime victory over Lawrence University of Appleton, Wis. The Pioneers scored 100 points after halftime.

Arseneault said he has never cut a player at Grinnell in 14 seasons.

“We have a unique experience that really no other school has,” Wood said. “When we’re winning games with 17 players, there are literally 12 guys who think they’ve played a big part in the win.”

Because of the demanding curriculum -- the average Scholastic Assessment Test score for Grinnell’s 1,350 students is more than 1,300 -- players spend a lot of time studying and talking about their schoolwork, even during bus rides to and from road games.

“You’ll hear the guys talking about a physics exam or their favorite lines from Shakespeare,” assistant coach Emil Malinowski said. “It’s amazing.”

In contrast, Arseneault says playing basketball in his system takes very little preparation once everyone learns his role.

“Preparation? We don’t do any,” Arseneault said. “It’s pretty standard fare for us. Almost to the point of not being mentally challenging.

“I like it when we get new kids in who add their own wrinkle. Because it’s neat to see how they react.”

Senior guard Jim Shaw recalls his reaction two years ago when he deflected an inbounds pass to teammate Patrick Choquette under the basket.

“He had an open layup, but he turned around and passed it right back out to me for a three,” Shaw said. “I was a little surprised, but that’s what we’re looking for. It starts runs and it gets the crowd involved.”

The idea is to get significantly more shots than the opponent through turnovers and offensive rebounds. A shot is usually taken within 12 seconds of a possession, and everyone but the shooter is expected to go for the rebound.

“We have a pecking order established of who we’d like to get a first shot from,” Arseneault said. “But if that person doesn’t get open, we go to option two, three, four, five, right down the row really quickly.”

Understandably, playing for Grinnell means you have a better than average chance of getting your name in the Division III record book.

Pioneer players hold the marks for most points in a game (77 by Jeff Clement, 1998), season scoring average (37.3 by Steve Diekmann, 1995) and three-point baskets in a career (516), season (186) and game (19), all set by Clement, who played from 1996 to ’99.

Players still talk about the night the 5-foot-11 Clement scored 77 against Illinois College. By design, Clement never crossed half court, a strategy that forced Illinois to keep a player back on defense. With Grinnell trailing by 10 points with four minutes left, Arseneault told Clement to stop shooting threes and take his defender to the basket.

“It looked like his arms were about done; he’d already hoisted up 52 three-point shots,” Arseneault said. “I told him, ‘You’ve scored a lot of points, but if we don’t win it’s going to look pretty foolish.’ ”

Clement scored his last 10 points on drives to the basket and Grinnell pulled out a 148-143 victory. Clement made 19 of 52 three-pointers.

“The joke around campus was if he was hot that night he could have gotten 100,” Arseneault said.

The coach has witnessed plenty of other memorable games. A sampling:

* Diekmann (69) and Ed Brands (51) combined for 120 points for Grinnell, but the Pioneers lost to Simpson, 167-148, on Nov. 19, 1994. It is the division record for most points by two teams.

* Trailing by 13 with 56 seconds to play, Grinnell tied the score in regulation and won in overtime against Martin Luther in the 1997-98 season opener. Scott Wilson made 12 three-pointers, including three in the last minute of regulation, and Clement made a 35-foot shot at the buzzer to force overtime.

* Beloit set a division record for field-goal percentage in a half by making 22 of 23 shots in the first half against Grinnell, yet it trailed by five points because of turnovers against the press. Beloit missed only five shots in the game and lost by seven on Jan. 27, 2001.

And then there was the game in the mid-1990s when Grinnell nearly ran a two-man officiating crew off the court. The officials approached Arseneault at halftime and said they couldn’t run anymore because both had pulled leg muscles.

The second half was played with an official standing at each end of the court and a student manager at the half-court line to retrieve the ball.

Another time, Arseneault found an exhausted official sitting in the shower long after the game had ended, too sore to speak.

Arseneault has gained notoriety for his freewheeling system, but has had limited success in the 10 years he’s used it. Grinnell has won two Midwest Conference titles since 1993, and last season finished 12-12 and in fourth place.

Still, that’s an improvement over where the program was when Arseneault got to Grinnell in 1989. The basketball team had endured 25 consecutive losing seasons and went 3-19 in Arseneault’s first campaign.

“I did the basic, conservative seven-man rotation,” Arseneault said. “We didn’t have enough athletes. We thought a lower-possession game was our best chance of winning.”

After another losing season, he switched to an up-tempo style and the Pioneers averaged 102 points and finished 11-11. After the last game, Arseneault allowed the players to vote on whether they wanted to continue running the next season. They voted to slow things down.

“We were running with 10 kids, [substituting] two and a half minutes at a time,” Arseneault said. “By the middle of January, they were exhausted.”

But going back to a more conventional style proved unrewarding for the players. Unhappy, they went to Arseneault during Christmas break of the 1992-93 season and asked to start running again.

“I told them they had to stick it out,” he said. “They had made a decision. They just didn’t like giving up on that freedom.”

After the Pioneers finished 10-12, Arseneault again allowed the players to vote. They made two decisions.

“First they voted to go back to the running game,” Arseneault said. “And then they voted never to vote again. That was it. Now it’s been 10 years.”

Arseneault has adjusted his system over the years, most notably by reducing the time players spend in a game. He started with shifts lasting 2 minutes 30 seconds, then gradually shortened them. Last season, he started substituting at the first whistle after 35 seconds, a shift that usually lasts about a minute.

“I don’t think we can go lower than that,” he said.

Because players are not on the court for long periods, there is relatively little emphasis put on physical conditioning.

“When we go play in an open gym, Coach wants us to play only five possessions at a time,” Shaw said. “We go as hard as we can.”

Anyone who doubts there is a method to the madness need only be reminded that Arseneault’s theories are based on science. As an independent study project several years ago, he had two students analyze two seasons worth of game film to determine what statistical data related to Grinnell winning games.

“They came back and told me, ‘Hey, you’ve been winning games when you do this,’ ” Arseneault said. “That was our scouting base.”

The study resulted in the team’s goals for each game: take 100 shots, one every 24 seconds; make half the shots three-point attempts; force 32 turnovers; rebound one-third of the misses; take 30 more shots than the opponent.

Grinnell is 42-3 when meeting all of those goals.

Arseneault, who earns $75,000 a year, says he has no intention of leaving the school despite getting more lucrative offers to coach elsewhere. His son David, a sophomore basketball standout at Grinnell High, already has indicated he wants to play for his dad.

“He says he has a five-second attention span on defense and wants to come jack up threes for me,” Arseneault said.

As good a fit as that sounds, Arseneault said he nearly landed the ideal player for Grinnell last year.

“I tried to recruit a kid who can shoot three-pointers with either hand,” he said. “He would have been just perfect.”

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Grinnell and Bear It

Grinnell College, a Division III school in Iowa, has made its reputation as a high-scoring, full-court pressing, three-point shooting team -- a formula Paul Westhead-coached Loyola Marymount used to average almost 25 victories and reach the NCAA tournament in three seasons from 1987 to ’90. Grinnell’s per-game statistics this season and those of Loyola Marymount in one of three seasons from 1987 to ‘90:

*--* GRINNELL LOYOLA MARY 2002-03 1987-1990 POINTS 130.4* Scored **122.4 (‘89-90) 118.7 Allowed 108.1 (‘89-90) 3-POINT SHOOTING 22.5 Made 9.3 (‘89-90) 65.2 Att 23.2 (‘88-89) 346 Pct 420 (‘87-88) FIELD GOALS 43.7 Made 45.6 (‘89-90) 102.3 Att 87.8 (‘89-90) 427 Pct 519 (‘89-90) 3-POINT SHOTS ACCOUNT FOR 51.9% Of Points 22.8% (‘89-90) 63.7% Of FG Att NA * On pace for NCAA Division III record, held by Grinnell at 124.9 in 2001-2002. ** NCAA Division I record

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GOLDEN RULES OF GRINNELL BASKETBALL

For Grinnell to be successful, according to Coach David Arseneault, it must meet or exceed certain goals in every game. The following numbers were established after a statistical analysis of Grinnell victories over a two-season period several years ago:

* Take 100 shots.

* Take one shot every 24 seconds.

* Make sure at least half of the shots are three-pointers.

* Rebound one-third of its missed shots.

* Take 30 more shots than the opponent.

* Force 32 turnovers.

In the last 45 games that Grinnell has reached these numbers, it has won 42. This season, Grinnell is averaging 102.3 shots a game, had 63.7% of its shots as three-point attempts, rebounded 40% of its missed shots, taken an average of 31.2 shots more than opponents and forced an average of 24.5 turnovers.