The highest-scoring game in NCAA men’s tournament history came in 1990, when Loyola Marymount beat Michigan 149-115 in the second round. A week later, the Lions lost 131-101 to eventual national champion UNLV in the regional finals for the third-highest total in tournament history. Sandwiched between this pair in second place is LMU’s 119-115 win against Wyoming in the opening round of the 1988 tournament.
In fact, all five of the highest-scoring games since expansion to the 64-team field in 1985 belong to Loyola Marymount which operated at a breakneck speed still unmatched by any team in the past three decades and earned a place in March Madness history.
Sixteen tournament games since that 1990 season have cracked the combined 200-point mark, several with the benefit of overtime, but only two games have done so since 2008. One of those involved Alabama, which beat College of Charleston 109-96 in last year’s opening round on the way to the Final Four, where the Crimson Tide lost to eventual national champion Connecticut.
In the regular season or the postseason, Alabama’s high-pace style of play is designed to overwhelm competition and bury teams behind a scoring barrage. The No. 2 Crimson Tide may meet their foil — or at least see a mirror image of their playing style of choice — in a Sweet 16 matchup in the East region against No. 6 Brigham Young, an opponent that has been more than happy to run and gun in reaching the tournament’s second weekend for the sixth time in program history.
Alabama presents “a tall task for us,” said BYU coach Kevin Young. The Cougars haven’t made the Elite Eight since 1981 and have never advanced to the Final Four.
Should the matchup meet expectations and go according to plan, Thursday night’s game in Newark, New Jersey, will be the highest-scoring game in this year’s bracket and potentially one of the highest-scoring games in recent tournament history.
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Only two games from the opening weekend topped 170 points: Alabama’s 90-81 win against No. 15 Robert Morris in the first round and the Cougars’ 91-89 thriller against No. 3 Wisconsin in the second round.
The Tide rank first nationally in scoring at 90.8 points per game. They’ve scored at least 80 points in every game but four. Among those four were losses to Purdue (87-78), Mississippi (74-64) and Tennessee (79-76). On a per-game basis, Alabama also ranks near the top of Division I in assists (16th), bench points (sixth), field-goal percentage (17th), made free throws (seventh), 3-point attempts (14th) and makes (20th), and fastbreak points (27th).
BYU is 25th in the country at 80.2 points per game, a total buoyed by a late-season surge that has seen the Cougars crack the 80-point mark in all but two of their past 11 games. Like the Tide, BYU is potent from deep, ranking 29th nationally in 3-point attempts and 11th in makes per game, while sitting at 21st in overall field-goal percentage and sixth in effective field-goal percentage.
“We’ve got some guys playing well on the offensive end,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said. “Hopefully, we continue to play well on offense. But our defense is going to have to be at an elite level against BYU. Our defense is going to get tested against these guys on Thursday.”
Crossover games featuring these teams in matchups against the SEC and Big 12 provide a glimpse into the frenetic style that will decide Thursday’s pairing.
Back in late November, Alabama beat Houston 85-80 in overtime for just the Cougars’ fourth loss since the 2018-19 season when scoring 80 or more points. One of those defeats was an 83-82 loss at Alabama on Dec. 11, 2021. Also in November, BYU lost 96-85 in overtime to Mississippi, with the two teams combining for 27 points in the extra frame.
“They’re a really high-octane offense,” BYU senior guard Trevin Knell said of the Crimson Tide. “They have really dynamic guards that are really well-coached. I think it’s going to be fun to play a team from the SEC and fun to play a team of that caliber.”
Both offenses are defined by high-level guard play and deep, productive benches.
“They play a lot like us, very fast paced,” said Alabama senior guard Mark Sears. “And it should be a very fun game, but it’s going to come down to getting stops.”
Alabama is led by Sears, who leads the team at 18.6 points per game despite shooting 40.1 percent from the field, down from 50.8 percent a year ago. Another three guards are averaging in double figures in sophomore Aden Holloway (11.3 points per game), freshman Labaron Philon and senior Chris Youngblood. Also in double figures in veteran forward Grant Nelson (11.5 points per game), though the senior has been limited of late by an injury to his left knee.
Overall, the Tide and coach Nate Oats have nine players in their current rotation averaging at least 14.5 minutes per game, with all nine averaging at least 5.7 points per game.
BYU will go even deeper down the bench. Eleven players average at least 7.4 minutes per game and eight have made at least 33 attempts from 3-point range, led by forward Richie Saunders’ 78 makes in 181 attempts. A junior in his first year in the starting lineup, Saunders led the Cougars with 16.3 points per game. Another four guards are averaging at least 6.9 points per game, led by freshman Egor Demin’s 10.5 points and team-best 5.4 assists per game.
“I wasn’t planning on playing 11 guys this late in the year,” said Young. “Usually, it goes the other way.”
The story of nearly any other possible matchup in this year’s tournament, especially among teams still alive in the chase for the national championship, would be how an opponent plans to stop Alabama or BYU, or at a minimum slow down two of college basketball’s top offenses.
But this will be different. The Cougars won’t look to stop the Crimson Tide as much as outscore them, and the feeling is mutual. With an Elite Eight berth on the line, both teams could easily hit the century mark in scoring — and keep on going.
“Like, we’re both one and two in offensive ratings right now, so it’s going to be definitely a fast-paced game,” Knell said. “But I’m excited to hopefully be able to play some good defense, not have it 150-149 or something like that like in the 1990s. But yeah, that would be awesome.”