Grinnell, IA 12/10/2022- The Westminster College men's basketball team traveled to Iowa on Saturday to face off against Grinnell College. Grinnell set the NCAA record for most three-pointers attempted in a game on Thursday, shooting 111 threes and not attempting a single two-pointer. The Blue Jays are familiar with that type of play with Greenville University running a similar offense in the SLIAC. However, the Pioneers' barrage of threes was too much for the Jays' offense to keep up with on Saturday as they made 23 of them en route to their 124-72 victory over Westminster. Grinnell improves to 5-6 on the season and Westminster falls to 1-7.
The Pioneers lead for 38 minutes of the game with Westminster leading at the 4-3 mark early in the first half. That lead lasted a total of fifteen seconds. The Blue Jays turned the ball over 31 times in the game giving Grinnell 25 fastbreak points and 46 points off turnovers. Grinnell also won the rebounding battle, outrebounding Westminster 60-45, with 25 of them being offensive rebounds that they converted to 17 second-chance points.
Grinnell would go 15-17 from the free throw line and 23-69 from three. They would go 43-102 overall in the game. Westminster was 15-23 from the free throw line and 27-68 from the field. The Jays struggled from three shooting 15% going 3-19 from behind the arc.
Westminster was led by Jaxon Althaus (Oak Grove, Mo. / Oak Grove) and Caleb Maassen (Linn, MO / Linn) who both had 11 points in the game. Maassen had 7 rebounds and Althaus would have 6. Kaden Eirhart (Altamont, IL / Altamont) had 10 points off the bench and would make two of the Blue Jays' three three-pointers.
The Blue Jays will be back in action next Saturday, December 17th when they travel to Illinois to take on Monmouth College.
