Seeing a sport played expertly by players in their physical peak can be a thing of beauty;
an ideal representation of the game as it was meant to be.
Nowhere is that more true than college basketball.
But sometimes, a game can be played so badly, so fundamentally rotten at its core, it makes
you wonder why anybody attempts to play it at all.
One such game happened in 2019 -- the type of game so stupefyingly bad, so antithetical
to the very Platonic ideal of basketball itself, that everyone who witnessed it instantly knew
they had just watched...
The Worst College Basketball Game.
February 2nd, 2019.
Raleigh, North Carolina.
The 12th-ranked Virginia Tech Hokies have traveled to North Carolina to take on the
23rd-ranked Wolfpack.
NC State comes into this game 16-5, but they’re still looking for a marquee win to stay on
track and prove they deserve to make it into the tournament.
Just last week, they took third-ranked Virginia the distance, losing by just 1 in overtime.
Three days before that, Wolfpack guard Braxton Beverly dusted off Clemson with a 3PT buzzer
beater.
They’ve got talent, and the chance here to make a statement.
Virginia Tech is 17-3 and also looking to keep up their momentum heading into February.
The Hokies are good on offense, but they’re coming into the game without their star guard
Justin Robinson, who suffered a toe injury against Miami in the game prior, and an otherwise
thin bench.
It’ll be a challenge, but a road win here for Tech would be huge.
So, this is a big game for both teams who are jockeying for position in a competitive
ACC.
Also, these teams are first and 3rd in the ACC in shooting, which is worth mentioning,
especially in a conference dominated by powerhouse programs like Duke, UVA, and UNC.
The game starts, and the Hokies kick things off with a jumper from Kerry Blackshear.
The Wolfpack respond with one in kind from CJ Bryce.
Viewer, congratulations.
You’ve just witnessed the only points that either of these teams will make in the first
7 minutes of this game.
Though you are about to see it with your own eyes, it’s impossible to account for why
these teams just cannot put the ball into the hoop.
Except, maybe they were jinxed by Evan Lepler and Brian Oliver, who tell us 3 minutes into
the game, “both of these teams are tops in the league in scoring, and you’re going
to see a frenetic pace of going back and forth…”
And oh, how those teams go back and forth.
What exactly happens over the following 5 minutes of game time?
Only this: Foul and a turnover.
Miss.
Turnover.
Miss.
Turnover.
Miss, foul, miss.
Miss.
Turnover, on this absolutely hilarious out-of-bounds pass from Markell Johnson “Goodness gracious!
Someone was open but he was in the third row.”
Turnover.
Miss.
Miss, offensive rebound, foul on NC state, turnover.
Miss
Turnover
And that, by the way, is VT’s seventh turnover of the game so far.
There is, if nothing else, some defense.
Now, before we finally get to the next points of this game, I want you to take a look at
NC State’s last possession before that happens.
We’ve got: a missed three point jumper by Braxton Beverly, Wyatt Walker with the offensive
rebound, back to Beverly for a missed jumper, then a missed tip and a missed put-back attempt
by Walker.
Phew!
“Four chances, none of them convert."
That sound you hear from the crowd after all this is the same exact sound you hear from
an audience dealing with a frustrating contestant on the Price is Right.
"Joy, Joy. Help her audience, she needs help." [indistinct audience yelling]
We’re almost at the much-hyped debut of a second made shot by either of these teams.
But first, I just want to quickly point out the stat line graphic that the broadcast puts
up right before it happens.
That is crazy.
Here, finally, with 12:54 left in the half, the Hokie’s Isaiah Wilkins nails a 3-pointer, and
the home crowd cheers simply because they finally saw a basketball thing happen.
At this point, the analysts would like to remind you AGAIN that these are:
“two of the better field goal shooting teams - ranked 1st and 3rd - in the conference,”
almost as if to apologize and swear that this doesn’t usually happen.
And once again, this comment gives our boys some performance anxiety and nobody scores
for nearly another 4 minutes.
Somewhere in there, the broadcast gives us this wonderful tableau of the terminally bored
NCSU band.
I’m going to pause this here so you can pick out your favorite -- this one’s mine
because I know how much it sucks to wear your best hat out on the town for nothing.
Later, with 7:30 left in the half, a Hokies 3-point jumper brings the game to 13-6, and
the Wolfpack respond with another brutal possession consisting of 5 shots, and 5 misses.
“Can the Wolfpack pay it off?
They cannot.”
A few more feeble attempts at scoring are punctuated by some actual buckets, but eventually
both teams limp into halftime with a combined 34 points, a score of 20-14 -- the fewest
combined points in a half that PNC Arena has ever seen.
But yes, despite NC State’s abysmal shooting performance, they’ve managed to keep it
within 6.
On to the second half, where NC State quickly treats us to yet another impotent possession
with multiple shots that result in nothing, including yet another miss from Braxton Beverly,
who is scoreless so far today.
“Sooner or later we’re gonna realize that Beverly’s gonna start knocking down those
shots, you’re playing with fire if you’re Virginia Tech, leaving him open.”
“He’s such a good shooter, you have to imagine it’s gonna break through.”
That assumption is… incorrect.
At one point, the broadcast, in a moment of relative quiet, picks up a frustrated fan
who acutely expresses what we’re all thinking: “It’s called basketball!
Let’s play it!”
Friend, this is not basketball.
This is something darker.
More sinister.
That brings us to 6:50 left in the game, and I want you to really take in this Torin Dorn
lay-up, as it will be NC State’s last field goal of the game.
They’ll score two more points on free throws before the game is up, but I think it’s
kind of neat that they managed to bookend this game — 11 minutes at the beginning
and 7 at the end for a total 18 minutes — with only a single made shot.
And that’s kind of it.
The analysts wonder aloud: “Could this be the lowest scoring game in
Woflpack history?”
It’s close.
The band gallantly sticks around to play one final dirge for a mostly empty arena, and
this game, such as it is, is over.
The final score?
47 to 24.
Forty-seven...to twenty-four.
Yes, that is a real basketball score.
Here are a few things that are true: the Wolfpack went 9-for-54 in this game, a shooting percentage
of 16.7.
That is the lowest percentage in the history of the ACC, which was formed in 1953.
You’d think they would make some adjustments at halftime, but in fact, the Wolfpack shot
.194 in the first half, then dropped to .130 after halftime.
Braxton Beverly went 0-12 from the field and 0-9 from behind the arc, a big fat goose-egg
of a game for him.
It’s the lowest scoring game NC State has had in a regular season game since Dwight
D Eisenhower was president.
It was the lowest scoring game of any ranked Division 1 school since the shot clock was
established in 1985.
But a question remains: is this truly the worst college basketball game of all time?
There are thousands of NCAA games that get played every year, and basketball has been
played at colleges for the better part of a century.
Surely there are other contenders.
Take for instance the 2011 NCAA Championship between Butler and UConn, which ended with
the fewest combined points in a championship game since 1949.
Or perhaps a 2013 game between Northern Illinois and Eastern Michigan, which -- well, you know
what, I’ll let eyewitness Jon Bois tell you about that one.
Jon?
2013, Northern Illinois vs. Eastern Michigan, there are three things I want to tell you
about this game.
The first is that Northern Illinois scored four points in the entire first half.
The second is they went 1-33 from the three-point range and only hit their one with two minutes
left in the game.
The third, my personal favorite, one of those threes was an airball.
A Northern Illinois player was supposed to rebound it - he was underneath the net - he
watches it come down, instead of putting his hands up, he puts them down slack at his sides,
he watches as the ball hit him in the chest and bounces out of bounds.
Greatest game ever.
Total stinkers to be sure, but there’s something to be said for a game in which the play-by-play
guys turn on these kids early and often: “I swear to god…”
“This is really bizarre…”
“Two teams that can really score.
Believe us, please.”
“We’d understand if you’d like to avert your eyes.”
Indeed.
But like any good train wreck, sometimes it can just be impossible to tear yourself away.
So, the next time you fail miserably at the most basic task expected of you, just remember
that one time, and not very long ago, an entire college basketball program was incapable of
accomplishing even the most basic element of the game: putting the ball in the basket.
And you know what?
Life goes on.
Thanks for watching.
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UConn-Butler championship game, we’ve got it here.
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