Jackson CC goes off in opening scrimmage

OK, so it only was a scrimmage, against a team we really have no way of judging for competitiveness. It doesn't mean anything, right?

Well, perhaps it does, since I am downright giddy with the news about the effort put in by coach Andy Hoaglin and the Jackson (Mich.) Community College women's team Saturday. System teams normally need a few games to fully come together, given all the complexities of running this wonderful style of basketball. Coach Hoaglin's squad got going a bit quicker than that.

First, the details: the Lady Jets beat Sioux College 154-57 on the strength of some amazing shooting from the the 3-point line. Jackson, a Division II member of the National Junior College Athletic Association, finished 43-of-84 beyond the arc, which would be two more NJCAA records for the Jets. They finished last season, their first running The System, with the most 3-pointers attempted in a season (1,550) and the highest scoring average (103.6).

The totals from this one would shatter the NCAA Division I marks for 3s in a game as listed in last year's record book -- in fact, both the attempts and made shots would be more than the highest COMBINED total from two teams in a single game. Ole Miss (17) and Bowling Green (14) connected on 31 treys between them Nov. 26, 1999, and those two teams shot a total of 75 3s in that contest.

Pretty impressive, right?

Jackson forced more than 40 turnovers and attempted more than 125 shots, too. Here are Coach Hoaglin's thoughts:

Andy Hoaglin: "We did many things well today, and I was so impressed with our overall effort with a short bench of 12. We actually had 4 sophomores sitting out today because of minor injuries or participation in other sports. Still, the freshmen grew up in a hurry and surprised me on so many levels ... Just a fun day.

"Obviously one scrimmage means absolutely little, but they KNOW this team has special written all over it."

Great stuff for Jackson. I can't wait to check in with this team again soon.