Nineteen years ago, Gersten Pavilion on the campus of Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles was site of one of the craziest games in history.
Paul Westhead's Lions, playing their trademark breakneck pace, had an opponent in U.S. International that was willing to run and gun. When the final buzzer sounded, Loyola had an eye-popping 186-140 victory.
But the story behind the story was a 72-point game by the Gulls' Kevin Bradshaw, who made 23 of 59 shots from the field and 19 of 23 free throws.
The 72 points bested Pete Maravich's record of 69, set in a Louisiana State overtime loss to Alabama in 1970.
The reaction? Bradshaw was greeted with hate mail.
"It was the craziest thing," Bradshaw, 44, told the Los Angeles Times. "I had lived a certain rebel lifestyle when I was younger, but I had changed my life around — good student, on course to graduate, no drugs, no alcohol — and then I get all this backlash for breaking a record.
"I said to friends, 'I'm getting more bad attention now than when I was doing bad stuff,' and that confused me. Where was this coming from? I felt like I was supposed to apologize."
Bradshaw's record still stands, but U.S. International is no more. The school went bankrupt and is now known as Alliant University, which is how Bradshaw's affiliation is listed in the NCAA record book.
Bradshaw was so embittered by the aftermath of setting the scoring record that he took a year off from playing and finished school. Then an offer came to play professionally overseas and he spent 16 years in Israel.
Bradshaw, now 44, returned to the U.S. in 2008 and is now an assistant at Point Loma Nazarene. He still can't make sense of the reaction to his scoring record.
"A kid goes out and does something like that, why not pat him on the back? You can have your opinion, but don't make it ugly," he said. "The next guy who scores 72 or 73 points, they'll probably build a statue of him."
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