Everyone else went to the locker room at halftime. Adrian Stubbs stayed on the court, alone, shooting free throws.
The Maryvale High School senior guard had missed five of them in the first half. A half in which he scored 70 points.
In a game where he would reach 100.
“We’ve seen him get pretty hot,” coach Jeremy Smith told The Athletic. “But 70 in the first half? I’ve never seen anything like it. It was ridiculous.”
The setting hardly hinted at history. A regular-season, non-conference matchup Tuesday night, Maryvale’s 6A Panthers against 5A Kofa High School in Arizona. Stubbs entered with a number in mind.
The senior guard’s career high was 56, one shy of Nico Mannion’s 6A state record of 57. He passed that by halftime. The overall Arizona record was 75, set by George McCormick of Fredonia in the 1960s, so that became the next target.
Those five missed free throws lingered. They were the only thing separating him from McCormick, so Stubbs stayed back, rehearsing the margin.
He was pulled with a few minutes left in the third quarter, already at 84 points. Stubbs pleaded with Smith to let him finish the period. Whatever the total ended up being, so be it.
It ended at 100.
Three quarters. A 32-minute high school game with eight-minute quarters. A 109–25 final.
“I saw I was rolling in the first quarter,” Stubbs told The Athletic. “I just kept scoring. The game kept happening, and 100 points just kind of happened.”
Adrian Stubbs didn’t play the entire fourth quarter, accomplishing his feat in only three. (Jeremy Smith/ Maryvale High School Athletics)
Stubbs poured in 10 unanswered points to open the game, an early enough signal of what was coming that his teammates bought in immediately.
Senior guard Abam Moreno-Salazar proved it in the first quarter. He jumped a passing lane out of Maryvale’s full-court press (which they quickly abandoned to a base half-court defense as the score ran up) and had a clear layup with Stubbs trailing the play.
Moreno-Salazar dropped it off instead. Another easy two for Stubbs.
A signal to coach Jeremy Smith that his team, and his player, “were on the precipice of something special.”
Stubbs leads Maryvale in assists at 6.5 per game, but this night belonged to the senior scorer.
“They showed all their selflessness,” Stubbs said. “Just giving me the ball, giving all the effort and the hustle… My teammates kept telling me I was on track. They kept feeding me the ball. So I was like, ‘if my teammates are with it. I’m with it too.’ Let’s go.”
With Maryvale holding a wide halftime lead, the team headed to the locker room while Stubbs stayed behind, rehearsing the margin between himself and history at the free-throw line. Smith used the break to speak with Kofa head coach Brandon Lovings.
Kofa had tried everything. Man-to-man. 2-3 zone. Box-and-one.
Powerless.
Stubbs scored at the rim, carved space in the midrange, and hit just six three-pointers. Anything he wanted was falling.
Smith wanted Lovings to know it wasn’t personal, that this wasn’t about running up the score. A sentiment Lovings understood.
“It’s our job to try to stop him,” Lovings told Smith. “Keep playing, coach. Keep doing your thing.”
That was all Smith needed to hear.
“I told the team, ‘What we’re not about is running up the score,’” Smith said. “‘That’s not who we are, and that’s not what this is. But son, you’re doing a heck of a job. If you stay hot, we’re going to keep going.’”
So Stubbs went back out, with a few extra pleas to at least finish the third quarter, and into the Arizona record books.
The national high school single-game scoring record is 135 points, set by Danny Heater of Burnsville High School in West Virginia in 1960. Smith believes Stubbs could have chased it if he wanted. The point, though, had already been made.
History was secured.
The locker room afterward was congratulatory but oddly subdued. Too mild for Smith. Nothing close to the water celebration the team had given the coach weeks earlier for his 50th career win. Smith reminded them of that.
Seconds later, Stubbs was drenched.
“I asked them, ‘Where was that same energy?’” Smith said. “So they dumped every ounce of water in the locker room on that man. He had fun with it.”
Stubbs holds Division II offers from Dallas Baptist and Embry-Riddle. His future remains undecided. His message is not.
“I wanted to be the first person to score 100 in a game,” he said. “To make that happen, especially being the first in our state, it feels like an honor.”
If only he’d made those first-half free throws.