GREAT SCOTT! Joe Scott's single-game scoring record at Mizzou set in 1961 still stands

Joe Scott, seen in this 2004 photo in his office, set the single-game scoring record for the University of Missouri basketball team in 1961.

DAR FILE

Editor's note: This story first appeared in a 2004 edition.

Joe Scott was at the Hearnes Center in 1990 when Missouri forward Doug Smith was pouring in shot after shot. Smith was so hot that when Tigers coach Norm Stewart took his starters off the court in a blowout victory, he left Smith in the game to make a run at the school’s single-game scoring record.

Smith had 44 points – just two shy of Scott’s 29-year-old record – when he hoisted a flurry of shots toward the end of the game.

Joe Scott played at the University of Missouri from 1959-61.

Photo provided

“He shot a shot about 15 feet and missed. Of course, he’s big and quick as a cat. He grabbed it and shot it, and it didn’t go in,” Scott recalled. “He shot it again and whoever was sitting by me, I said, ‘I can’t believe that ball is not going in.’ About that time, he missed again and went over somebody’s back for his fifth foul.”

His record safe for another game, Scott playfully scolded his good friend and former freshman coach at Missouri afterwards.

“I saw Norm and I said, “Listen Norm, that darn Doug almost broke my record. What’s the deal?’” Scott said. “He said, ‘Joe, when he gets on a roll like that, he’s libel to break it one of the days.’ And I said, ‘Well you better get him out of the game.’

“Norm thought I was serious and I was just laughing.”

Smith is one of many Tiger greats to make a run at Scott’s scoring record. But like Smith’s final shots in 1990, all attempts have fallen short.

Despite great names like Smith, Anthony Peeler, Derrick Chievous and Steve Stipanovich who have worn the Missouri black and gold, Scott’s now 43-year-old record has stood. The game has added the 3-point line and shot clock, but no one has matched the 46 points the Poplar Bluff attorney pumped in against Nebraska in 1961.

“I never dreamed the record would still be there today with all the great players they’ve had,” Scott said. “It’s pretty special.”

Scott developed into a big-time scorer in the rural community of Gainesville, a town with a population of 610 located 40 miles east of Branson and just north of the Arkansas border. At 6-foot-4 he had the ideal size for an interior player, but Scott’s outside marksmanship made him an easy choice at guard. Scott gained Missouri’s attention in 1957 when he averaged 31.5 points per game – third most in Missouri high school history – and led his team to a fourth-place finish in Class M. His knack for scoring earned his the nickname, ‘The Gainesville gunner.”

Even without his historic scoring night, Scott would have left his mark at Missouri. His 1,106 points are 27th all-time in Tiger history – just six points behind Stewart – and his 14.9 career scoring average ranks 19th. But it was one hot-shooting night that cemented Scott’s legacy.

It was March 6, 1961, when Nebraska came to the Brewer Field House in Scott’s next-to-last game with the Tigers. It was easily his best.

Scott came out firing, nailing nearly every shot he took. “He hit from almost everywhere on the court and some of his shots were very long,” the Columbia Daily Tribune reported the next day. Under the headline, ‘Scott Shatters Scoring Mark as Tigers Rip NU,” the newspaper described Scott’s performances as a “near-fantastic basket barrage.”

“It was just one of those nights when you’re really on,” Scott said. “You expect every shot to go in and when you miss, you can’t understand it. You’re just in a zone. Of course, it’s an awful lot of fun when they’re going in like that.”

Scott finished with two more points than Lionel Smith’s previous record and easily ahead of the 41 his three-year roommate and the Big Eight’s leading scorer, Charles Henke, scored the previous year against Nebraska. Scott made 18 of his 30 shots – also a record for field goals made – and 10 of his 13 free throw attempts. Missouri’s 97 points also established a school record.

The Cornhuskers did all they could to slow Scott. They used multiple defenders and knocked him to the floor several times, but it was to no avail. Although Scott doesn’t recall getting roughed up, he remembers how tough the old Big Eight Conference was.

“In those days, nobody drove the paint. No one drove the paint on us and we didn’t drive the paint on them,” Scott said. “We might try, you just never did make it there. It was real physical, but that was just fine.”

Scott made seven consecutive shots and scored 16 points in a seven-minute stretch early in the second half. He had no idea that his basket with 39 seconds left broke Smith’s scoring record.

“I think your concentration is so directed to your play that you know you’re having a real good night, but you’re just doing the very best you can,” Scott said. “You’re not thinking about records or how many you’ve got, but you know that it’s a special feeling that you can shoot that well and continue to do that for an entire game.”

Scott and Henke were both selected in the American Basketball League draft later that year. Scott went to the Chicago Majors and Henke to the Kansas City Steers. Most teams in the first-year league played in second-rate gyms in front of sparse crowds, but that wasn’t the case for the Majors. Property of the owner of the Harlem Globetrotters, Scott and the Majors often traveled and played doubleheaders with the Globetrotters. Many Meadowlark Lemon fans showed up early to watch an ABL game.

With war in Vietnam looming, Scott returned to Gainesville midway through his first season with the Majors. He planned to join the Marines, but the town’s quota was zero. Instead of returning to basketball, Scott enrolled in pre-law courses at Southwest Missouri State and eventually moved on to the law school at Missouri. He served two years training as a reserve officer at the school.

“I’m still mad that I don’t have veteran’s privileges,” Scott joked.

Scott graduated with his law degree in ‘66 and went to work for his father-in-law, who happened to be a judge. When he was appointed to the federal bench four years later, Scott started his own firm. He’s been in Poplar Bluff for 20-plus years and the past six he’s been alongside his son John, also a Missouri graduate.

The appeal of becoming an attorney was obvious to Scott. It’s competitive like sports and allowed him the independence he developed in the conservative hills of southern Missouri.

“I wanted to get into something I could make a good living, say what I wanted to say and do what I wanted to do without my business suffering,” Scott said. “But the main thing was the independence of it. You don’t have to worry Mr. So-and-So isn’t going to buy anymore groceries because I took a stand on rezoning.

“I had a strong desire to have my own business, my own profession. My parents worked for other people all their lives, so I was motivated in that way.”

Scott’s scoring record had endured some close calls. Chievous scored 42 against Virginia Tech in ‘87, Peeler had games of 43 and 42 points during his career, and Clarence Gilbert hoisted 36 shots to finish with 43 points in a quadruple-overtime win against Iowa State in 2001. Doug Smith did break Scott’s field goal mark by making 19 shots in ‘90, but he needed one more to break the scoring record.

Even if his record eventually falls, Scott is forever grateful he had the chance to set it.

“My fond memory is having the opportunity and privilege to represent the state university. It was a big deal,” he said. “Coming from a rural, small school, it was a great privilege for me to have the opportunity to play there.”

Great Scott!

The 46 points Poplar Bluff attorney Joe Scott scored against Nebraska in 1961 still stands as the single-game record at the University of Missouri. Here's the box score from Scott’s record-setting night: