Andrew Toney. Dwight “Bo” Lamar. Heading into Saturday night, these were the only two players to put up at least 44 points in a single game. JaKeenan Gant put his name alongside two of the greatest Cajuns basketball players of all time with a 45-point, 11 rebound game in a 75-61 win over Little Rock.
Considering everything that the senior has had to deal with on the court in the last month, it’s impressive to see him have the performance that he had on Saturday. Back on December 15th, Gant took a hard fall off of a block early in the first half against Louisiana Tech. He tried to get back on the court but he wasn’t the same player who just four days prior had racked up a career-high 27 points against Prairie View A&M.
He missed the next game and played 26 minutes against Southeastern. With only nine points, the forward still didn’t look 100 percent headed into conference play. However, he started to look like his old self, putting up 19 points in a losing effort to Arkansas State.
“That weighed on me” Gant said after the 75-61 win on Saturday, “That hurt me a lot, I felt like I could have done more to help my team last game than I did.”
He also mentioned that head coach Bob Marlin had been pushing him to put two halves together, especially with teammate Malik Marquetti out for the rest of the season. All that motivation paid off with a performance that some fans of the program haven’t seen since the late 70s.
When Toney and Lamar were putting up the numbers they did, the three-point line wasn’t around. In fact, the NCAA didn’t start utilizing the three-point line until the 1986-87 season. One of the more impressive parts of Gant’s game on Saturday was him going 4-of-5 from beyond the arc, meaning that Gant would still be the first player to put up 40 points since Toney but would only have 41.
That being said, Gant’s big night put himself in a pretty elite class when you look at the world of modern college hoops. In fact he’s the only one to do it this season and that’s crack the 45-10 mark. Six others have had 40 point and 10 board performances, but Gant is in a league of his own. And he did that without practicing the day before because of his leg not being 100 percent after the loss to Arkansas State.
-Clint Domingue
