Louisiana players hold 19 of the top 30 spots on the MaxPreps National High School Boys Basketball record book list of single-season scoring leaders, so it shouldn't be any surprise the Bayou State has many of the single-season assist leaders as well.
Single-season assists is the latest addition to the MaxPreps boys basketball record book. In the coming weeks, career, single-season and single-game records for rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots will be added.
MaxPreps National High School Basketball Record Book: Single-season assistsPerhaps the question should be: Why aren't more Louisiana players on the list? Huey Scott of
Florien (La.) tops the record book with 748 assists in 1980. That makes sense since Bruce Williams ranks No. 5 on the all-time single season scoring list with 1,851 points that year.
However, none of the teammates of the top four scorers make the assists list. There are two possible reasons for this. First, Louisiana does not have a state record book. Second, the National Federation of High Schools record book did not exist in the 1950s and 60s when these high scorers, and subsequent assist leaders, played. Therefore, there's little documentation to recognize their exploits.
The high-scoring players have found a place in the MaxPreps record book because their totals were reported to newspapers over the years. Assist totals are not part of a traditional newspaper box score and rarely reported in game stories, so record setters in that category have been lost to the dustbin of history.
Scott holds the all-time reported record, posting nearly 150 more assists than the No. 2 player on the list.
However, a different Louisiana player, Walter "Tootsie Roll" Meshell of
Ebarb (Noble, La.), likely holds the record and it's quite possible he had over 1,000 assists during his senior year in 1970.
Meshell was a high scorer in his own right with 1,717 points as he averaged close to 26 points during his senior year when Ebarb won the Class C state championship. As good as Meshell was, he wasn't even close to being the highest scorer on his own team. That honor went to Greg Procell, who averaged 46.6 points a game and became the only player in high school history to score over 3,000 points in a season with 3,173.
According to Shreveport Journal newspaper accounts, Meshell regularly fed the ball to Procell that season as Ebarb went 56-12 and averaged over 90 points per game. Assuming Meshell had 1,000 assists to Procell alone, that leaves 1,173 of Procell's points unaccounted for in regard to assists.
Meshell's assist totals will likely remain a mystery, as will the assist totals for the teammates of Harold Strother of
Plainview (Glenmora, La.), who scored 2,690 points in 1959 and Bobby Joe Douglas of
Marion (La.), who scored 2,052 points in 1980.
Fortunately, Florien reported Scott's assist totals to the NFHS record book and his incredible assist numbers will likely make him the all-time leader for years to come.
