The Forgotten NCAA Scoring Record

We're at Loyola Marymounts. They are facing off against US International University and destroying them up by forty points, which is a little over a minute left in the game where both teams would score over one hundred and forty points. But US Internationals Kevin Bradshaw steps to the free throw line to shoot two free throws, and if he makes them, he breaks legendary basketball player Pete Merrivich's all time record for the most points in a college basketball game. He's already scored more than Wilt Chamberlain, never did more than Oscar Robinson, and now he was about to beat Pistol Pete. He sinks the two free throws to break Pistol Pete's record and would finish the game with seventy two points, a record that has stood for over thirty years. The question is, why don't you know who Kevin Bradshaw is? Join us today as we dive into why and who Kevin actually was today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide because when it comes to playing basketball, I've scored seventy two points my entire life. So who was Kevin Bradshaw and why do you not know? Well, honestly, if he made different choices, he probably would have made it to the NBA and would have been at least a name you've heard of before. But he made some different choices in life and ended up where he thinks he should have been. So he grew up in Gainesville, Florida, and he played along Vernon Maxwell in high school and the average over thirty points as a senior and was first team All Staked. So who came knocking at his door? Well the Gainesville School, Florida, of course, and he turned them down instead, deciding to go to Bethune Cookman University, an historic black cop but as he would have felt as he felt more comfortable on that campus. But the problem was he felt too comfortable. He got in with the wrong crowd, and even though he was averaging almost twenty points by his sophomore season with Bethune, he was let go of the team due to drinking, doing drugs, poor grades, basically all the things you don't want a student athlete doing. So Bethune let him go, and he had another issue. He had just gotten His girlfriend had just gotten pregnant and he needed a way to support her and their future kid. So he joined the Navy because in the Navy you can sail the seven Seas. In the Navy, you can put your mind at ease. Sorry if you don't know what that was. It was song by the others people called the Navy. But the Navy actually allowed him to get right. Stop being in a knucklehead, as Charles Barkley would say, and he did. He was providing for his family. He was getting right, basically getting free rehab. And all branches of the armed forces actually have basketball team that aren't actually associated with their schools that they have like Naval Academy, Army, Air Force. Those are all universities that actually have Division I basketball, most notably David Robinson. The Admiral got that nickname because he actually went to Navy back in the eighties, right around the time somebody else was in the Navy, and Kevin actually crossed bass with David Robinson because he became the best player on his boat. So he joined the basses team and became the best player on the base team. And so he joined the Navy team and they would go around play expecation games against other teams all across the world. Basically a Navy All Star Team, where he joined another navyman in David Robinson, and David actually told him, you need to get out of here. You are too good of player to be playing here. Because David Robinson was already drafted into the NBA, he knew what it took to play in the NBA. He had been part of Team USA. He just had to serve his two years in the Navy before he could join the Spurs. So with that confidence, his contract with the Navy was ending and he was getting recruited by lots of people. Arizona State, San Diego State, and a little school in San Diego called US International. You've probably never heard of it because they went bankrupt during Kevin Bradshaw's senior season. Coach Gary Zarski recruited him there, but recruited him as a person, and that's why he chose there. He could have gone to these bigger schools. And if he would have gone to these bigger schools, you would go to Florida, Arizona State, even San Diego State. Most likely he would have done very well and would have made it to the league. But instead he went to these smaller schools that fit him better. And Gary really told him, you can go and have the ball run our fast basd offense like Leola Mayrimount was running a team they regularly played and that was known for the run and gun with bo kimball and he gathers and it's exactly what he did. His first season with the US International he averaged over thirty one points a game, and his second season he led the nation and scoring, averaging thirty seven points a game. And the reason he averaged so much is he basically played all forty minutes of the game. He was in the Navy. He knew how to battle through adversity, and so Coacheski just played him as much as he could because the team really needed it, because they were not a good team. The first season Kevin was there, they were able to be okay. They were fourth in the nation in scoring but second to last in defense, which led them to be twelve and sixteen overall. But his senior year nineteen ninety one, they were just awful. They only won two games, and the reason for that really is the fact that was the last season the team would ever play. The school went bankrupt, so they lost some players and they lost support from the school obviously because they didn't have any more money, so they were finishing out the season the best way they could, and so Sadarski and Kevin really wanted to do something to leave their mark on the team. So on January fifth, nineteen ninety one, they were playing Loyola Marrimount and Leolola, who was known for this running gun offense. There were two years away from Paul west Head and Hank Gathers in bo kimball, but Paul west had an assistant, Jay Hillcock took over and ran basically the same offense, so they were still scoring lights out, top five in scoring every year he coached. There, so two teams that only want to shoot run as fast as they can, shooting over one hundred times a game. This was a game where something special could happen, and in the opening minutes it looked like no defense was ever going to be played in this So by halftime, Kevin Bradshaw had forty eight points. That's a high for players that are Hall of famers in the NBA, let alone a player you've never heard, and at this time he could easily break Pete Merriverage's record. He only needed twenty one more points. And the way the game was going, it didn't look like a name one was going to play defense against him, and people didn't want him to do it. Now, there's two reasons that people would not want this record broken. One is a terrible reason. One is an okay reason, but who really cares. One reason is Kevin Black. Pete was white. Now this was nineteen ninety one, but ray still was a big thing going on at the time. The other reason is Pete was a legend, one of the best to ever play college basketball, and he had passed away a few years earlier. Mean, he didn't want to see that taken away from him. But that's not kevin problem. Kevin needs to do what's best for him. And he's not really paying attention to the score. He's just playing like he's played all season. He's leading the nation scoring, he's a scorer, and so he's just scoring. And so with just over a minute left, he needs two points to break Pete Merrivas's record. He steps to the free throw line and he sinks both ones, tying the record. It would hit a three to break the record, giving him seventy two points, becoming the all time leading single game scorer. In college basketball Division one. We'll get to that, hitting twenty three shots, hitting nineteen from the free throw line, scoring over a point to minute. They lose to Layola Marramount. Not by little, he lose by forty six points. It's one hundred and eighty six to one hundred and four, which was also an NCAA record for Division one. It was the most points combined scored in a game, So it was a lot going on each team's shot over one hundred and twenty shots. It was like the coaches were playing NBA jam. And like we said at halftime, when people were a little worried if he would actually break the record, it was a little tepid. When he actually broke the record, this was a great moment, probably the biggest moment of Kevin's career up until that point. It would probably be the biggest in his career, but he didn't know that at the time, and it was just kind of viewed as okay, partly because maybe there was a race component or just maybe people were sad to see a record from Pete Maravig be broken. But Kevin deserved this. He worked his way through it. He wasn't just a one time person that did this, and he showed that the schools one asset they were in bankrupcy was him. The problem was after this, he didn't have a whole lot. See, he was a guard. He stood sixty six, so he had the size to make it to the NBA, and he was really hoping to get drafted, but nobody called his name, nobody even tried him out, partly because he went to a small school that was closed down, partly because he had some issues in the past, partly because he was twenty five going to be twenty six when he entered the league. That's very old. Lots of players now and in the league before they even get to twenty. So even though he could score, he was pretty much pro ready on a scoring factor. That was all he had. So when he didn't get drafted, he didn't get called from in the NBA teams. He went on to play in Israel, and coincidently enough, he was a great scorer over there too. He ended up scoring one hundred and one points in a single game over there, showing how great of a scorer he actually was. And many of the players who had previously played in the NBA that were playing overseas there with him or against him, were like, sorry, dude, I don't know why you're here and not in the NBA. But sometimes the chips fall what they may Now, Kevin doesn't dwell in the fact that they didn't go to the NBA. If he would have made different school choices, maybe he would have made it to the NBA. Maybe it's made different choices when he was at Bethune Cookman, he could have made it, but he chose his path and that led him to where he now became a coach and educator, helping inner city youth have more success, using his background and what he went through in life to help guide kids, and that's what he really loves. He's making more of an impact doing that than he ever could have made on the basketball court, and that means a lot. It also shows you that these records that means so much to so many people that live for the test of time can be great. It also can be meaningless because it's not always about what you do on the court, about who you are as a person off the court. And that's what Kevin did after he was done playing basketball. And let's beyond did you even know who Kevin was before you listened to this episode. I know I didn't before I researched him. Seventy two points is great. Will it ever be broken with how sports are, honestly, probably not. It will take something crazy, but it is possible. Now, this was a record, and it's a record that still holds for Division one. And since he set this record, the closest anyone has come was Ryan Tolsen of Utah Valley in two thousand and nine, who scored sixty three points in a four overtime game. So it took a lot for him to get to that, and he was still nine point shy. Now, there are other instances where players who were on a Division one team played non Division one teams and were able to beat this record. There was actually four players that scored more than this. Frank Salvi from Fordham in nineteen fifty four scored one hundred points, and there's three other players, and all these were mainly in the fifties or before one guy did in the seventies. And there's also Endo Vision III. Jack Taylor of Grenaud College in twenty twelve scored one hundred and thirty eight points. It's a crazy amount. You shot a crazy amount of threes. But this shows you this record can be broken, which that's gonna happen. It will one of these days, and hopefully it's by a person that ended up in a good situation, just like Kevin. My question for you is how many years do you think it'll take before this record will actually be broken. I want to thank you for listening to Today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please like them to subscribe wherever you're at, And if you want to contribute to the show, head over to dailyesportshistory dot com. You can leave a voice memo or an email and let us know a topic you would like me to cover, and I'll give you a shout out at the end of the episode and we'll see you on the next one.