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- Sport
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Mud Monsters beat the Florence Y'all's
The past week for the Mississippi Mud Monsters has been busy. They are third in the Midwest Conference- west division. The Mud Monsters lost the series to the Evansville Otters. They won their series home against the Florence Y'all's. WJTV has highlights of the second match of the double header Sunday. The Mud Monsters won 11-1. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
10-02-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
The father-son duo behind a 3-point frenzy college basketball curiosity
RIPON, Wis. — David Arseneault Jr. gently swayed on the balls of his gray and red Air Jordan I low tops while standing near the whiteboard listing lineup combinations. He addressed his Grinnell College players, each reclining in leather chairs or hunching forward on wooden benches in front of their lockers 40 minutes before tip-off and with first place in the Midwest Conference hanging in the balance. Advertisement The opposing crowd at Ripon College was likely to be as packed as it had been the entire season, as was the case for most road games, to watch one of the great curiosities in Division III basketball. But the focus, he told them, needed to be about themselves: playing with composure, demonstrating competitive spirit and finding joy in the game. Continuing to take shots was more important than worrying about missing them, especially after a handful of poor shooting performances. In many ways, it sounded like a typical pregame speech. Until Arseneault raised his right fist to initiate a team huddle and issue a challenge. 'Goal for the first half: 50 field goal attempts, 25 3-point field goal attempts,' Arseneault said. 'That's what we want to come in and look at in the halftime box score. Fifty field goal attempts, 25 3-point field goal attempts and let's have some fun.' Welcome to The System, an unconventional, occasionally controversial, full-court pressing, hockey shift-style substituting, run-and-gun approach that has defined the Grinnell program for more than three decades and shaped the 38-year-old Arseneault's basketball passion. The System's inventor is his dad, David Arseneault Sr., who regularly shattered scoring records and retired as head coach seven years ago. So ingrained was the brand of basketball into Arseneault Jr. as a kid, he recalled being stunned to learn not every team played the same way. His background, which included playing point guard at Grinnell for his dad and serving as a part-time assistant, made his transition to head coach seamless. But the decision came at the expense of a career opportunity Arseneault Jr. couldn't believe he was granted, as an outsider attempting to pioneer an experimental approach in the pros and change how people think about what is possible within the game. Instead, he is back in his hometown, continuing the quest to perfect organized chaos one game at a time. 'It's an honor to follow in the footsteps of my dad,' Arseneault Jr. said. 'It's also scary and I feel like there's some pressure to that as well. Because I do want to try to take it to the next level.' When Arseneault Sr. concocted The System, he didn't do it to take Grinnell basketball to the next level. He didn't do it as a competitive strategy at all. He arrived in Grinnell, Iowa, with his wife, Ellie, son Dave Jr. and daughter Jennie in 1989 to guide a program that hadn't produced a winning season in 26 years. Advertisement Arseneault Sr., a native of Stoneham, Mass., had been the women's basketball coach for two years at now-defunct Hawthorne College in New Hampshire. It didn't take long for him to realize how many challenges he faced at Grinnell, a private liberal arts school 50 miles west of Des Moines where the average ACT score for incoming freshmen is 33. His first team finished 3-19 and he didn't have enough players remaining on his roster by the end of the season to conduct full practices. That's when he decided he could either leave Grinnell or do something drastic. He had admired Paul Westhead's up-tempo teams at Loyola Marymount in the late 1980s and wondered if he could elevate the pace even further. During the 1991-92 season, his third with Grinnell, Arseneault Sr. began experimenting with full-court pressure, mass substitutions and shooting a high rate of 3-pointers. He tasked two students to participate in a two-credit study that produced a mathematical formula for success with five goals: take 94 or more shots, take at least half of your shots from 3-point range, take 25 more shots than your opponent, collect offensive rebounds on 33 percent of your missed shots and force 32 turnovers. Arseneault Sr. estimated his teams won 95 percent of their games when hitting those marks. In The System, players were instructed to full-court press, substitute in five-man shifts at nearly every dead ball, shoot every 12 seconds and often surrender a layup for the opportunity to get the ball back and fire up another 3-point attempt. Grinnell frequently allowed more points than any Division III team in the country while ranking last in field-goal percentage defense and rebound margin. But Pioneers players were invigorated. They could score in bunches, and other teams wore down while attempting to keep pace with Grinnell's 15-plus player rotation over a 40-minute game. Grinnell routinely led all NCAA divisions in scoring, and Arseneault Sr. produced 15 winning seasons while reaching the D-III NCAA Tournament twice. That is the life into which Arsenault Jr. grew up. Arseneault Sr. said he knew his son had a future in coaching at 8 years old. The two were watching game film from the previous night. With 15 seconds remaining in a tie game, the opponent had the ball on its own sideline. Arseneault Sr. elected to keep double-teaming the ball and after three near-steals, Grinnell surrendered a layup at the buzzer. As Arseneault Jr. watched, he told his dad: 'That was stupid. You should have been packed in a tight zone and made them shoot from outside.' To which Arseneault Sr. could only say: 'You might be right.' Father and son talk daily about basketball and have for decades. Never were they more confused than when an email arrived from a Sacramento Kings executive in 2014 asking Arseneault Jr. if he was interested in being the head coach for its NBA Developmental League team, the Reno Bighorns (now the G League's Stockton Kings). Was it supposed to be sent to Arseneault Sr.? Was it supposed to ask Arseneault Jr. about an assistant coaching spot instead? Advertisement 'I thought they were reaching out to me,' Arseneault Sr. said. 'When I subsequently learned they were contacting my $5,000 a year part-time assistant, I just couldn't believe it.' Few knew The System better than his son. He played at Grinnell from 2005-09, was a three-time finalist for the Bob Cousy point guard of the year award and finished his career as the Division III all-time leader in assists average at 9.4 per game. Arseneault Jr. remained in Grinnell for five years as a part-time assistant coach, helping in various roles within the athletic department. By the end of that stretch, he often coached the team while his dad sat on the end of the bench. Still, this was something different. This was what Arseneault Jr. called 'blind, dumb luck.' Sacramento's brass wanted to experiment with an outside-the-box approach because the NBA, led in part by Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry, was trending toward more 3-point shooting. Arseneault Jr., at 28 years old, was tapped for the job. He implemented the Grinnell system exactly as he knew it. Reno finished 20-30 in his first season as pros tried to adjust to a style they had never seen. Arseneault Jr. said he believed he should have been fired. But Reno finished third out of five teams in the West Division, leading the D-League in scoring, offensive rating and pace while attempting 46.9 3-pointers per game. Sacramento picked up the team option on his contract and brought him back for a second season. Arseneault Jr. learned to adapt to a roster half the size of a college team. He didn't press quite as much. He didn't make wholesale substitutions every dead ball. But the roots of The System took hold. He led the team to the Pacific Division title and finished with the best record in the Western Conference at 33-17, setting records for offensive efficiency and leading the league in multiple scoring and 3-point shooting categories. There have been system imitators at lower levels but few, if any, at high levels because of the challenges associated with success: taller, stronger opponents who are better ball handlers, poor defensive marks and the capacity to lose big. But Brady Heslip, a former Baylor guard who began his professional career in Reno during Arseneault Jr.'s first season, said the two-year sample size offered proof of its potential while demonstrating Arseneault Jr.'s coaching abilities. Heslip set a D-League record in his first career game by burying 11 3-pointers. He broke that mark two weeks later with 13 made 3s and eventually signed a contract overseas. He said Arseneault Jr.'s ability to build trust while asking players to buy into such a unique system stood out. Heslip acknowledged The System wasn't perfect. In the pros, he said, teams can win games on a bad shooting night by doing everything else well, which was more difficult in The System. There also were games in which players felt scaling back from full-court pressing with a late lead would have led to more victories. Advertisement But, Heslip said, the Arseneaults were ahead of the curve in terms of reliance on 3s. Every NBA team ranked in the top 226 in league history for most 3-pointers attempted per game during a season has occurred in the last 10 years. Fifteen teams have finished a season attempting at least 40 3-pointers per game. Four more are on track to reach that mark this season, including the Boston Celtics, whose 48.1 3-pointers attempted per game would be a new single-season league record. 'I definitely think it got people thinking,' Heslip said. 'I like to think that perhaps that system contributed to further proving the thesis that you can play that way and be successful. There's a case to be made for a modified version of it in the NBA.' Maybe Arseneault Jr. could have forged a path in the pros. But he returned to Grinnell as the interim coach after his second season in Reno when his dad took a sabbatical leave. His fiancée, Rachel, was a Grinnell graduate and still living there. He knew the challenges of raising a family as a professional coach and wanted security in a familiar place. Arseneault Jr. and his now-wife have three kids, ages 7, 5 and 3. 'While my career was at a crossroads, it really wasn't even a decision in my mind,' Arseneault Jr. said. 'It was a no-brainer to want to come back to Grinnell. The whole package and the atmosphere, it's like I'm on a paid holiday.' Arseneault Jr. spent two seasons in an interim role before taking over as head coach in 2018. His dad still attends practices and home games, but Arseneault Sr. makes it clear this is his son's program. The biggest difference? Arseneault Jr. cares about defense in a way his dad never really did. He doesn't want to surrender uncontested layups or dunks and strategizes with players on how to gamble in the backcourt but be smart about preventing momentum-breaking runs. He doesn't make attaining all five goals of The System as much of a priority because he wants his players to play with more freedom. The System's frenetic nature remains. Grinnell leads the country in scoring at 115.5 points per game and 3-point attempts per game at 49.6. Winning has been a staple. This season, Grinnell is 17-5 overall, 10-3 in league play and vying to reach its first NCAA Tournament since Arseneault Sr. did so 24 years earlier. Arseneault Jr. has the best winning percentage in program history. He was named the conference coach of the year last season and nearly broke through with that elusive NCAA Tournament berth. Grinnell led Illinois College by 15 points at halftime of the conference championship game. Illinois College then demonstrated the types of wild swings that occur when playing against The System by outscoring Grinnell 65-26 in the second half to capture a 108-84 victory. Advertisement Grinnell assistant coach DJ Damazo calls Arseneault Jr. the most egoless coach he's ever been around. Guard Jackson Leone said he considers Arseneault Jr. a friend and noted the two golf together in the offseason. Leading scorer Kai Te Huki describes him as the perfect balance of critical and supportive. 'Dave deserves a lot of credit,' Illinois College coach Steve Schweer said. 'He's a really underrated coach. Some people don't know he was a head coach in the D-League. Like, this is a guy who has accomplished a lot as a coach.' Grinnell's black shooting shirts during pregame warmups indicate what players are attempting to achieve. In white letters above the Grinnell Pioneer logo reads: 3 > 2. But it's also part of a philosophy that has caused controversy over the years. Arseneault Sr. loved to try to set records and push boundaries. No game generated more national attention than when guard Jack Taylor set an NCAA scoring record with 138 points during Grinnell's 179-104 victory against Faith Baptist in 2012. Taylor took 108 shots and made 27 of 71 3-pointers. Grinnell intentionally picked a game against a lesser foe to try to break the record, and it wasn't the only time the Pioneers did such a thing. Taylor scored 109 points the following season against another overmatched foe in a 173-123 victory against Crossroads College. Arseneault Jr. set an NCAA single-game assists record in 2007 with 34. The plan that day: Players could take any shot they wanted, as long as it came off a pass from him. Grinnell guard Patrick Maher broke his record a few years later with 37 assists in a game. Two years ago, Grinnell set a new record by attempting 111 3-pointers and zero 2-pointers in a 124-67 victory against Emmaus Bible College. It marked the first time in college basketball history a team didn't attempt a single 2-pointer. Some have called The System a sham and an embarrassment to basketball because of the way it can warp statistics. Even Te Huki said his mom thinks it can be disrespectful to the game. Arseneault Jr., like his dad, sees it a different way. Advertisement 'It doesn't bother me,' Arseneault Jr. said. 'I'm trying to set us up to do what's best for our program, to create memories for these guys that are going to have for the most part careers outside of basketball. And we're trying to have some fun and test the limits of the game.' What players on Grinnell's team say casual observers don't notice is how much camaraderie The System provides. There are nearly 20 players who earn minutes, generating buy-in across the roster. Nobody generally plays more than half the game, but players say they feel as though they have played 40 minutes. Te Huki, who played the most minutes against Ripon at 21, subbed in for 18 shifts. And most games aren't meant to chase records. They're meant to give Grinnell — a team that may not always be as talented as its conference opponents — a chance to win in a unique atmosphere. 'A lot of times the criticism is a little bit unwarranted,' Leone said. 'At the end of the day, there's a million different ways to play basketball. Why is this not one?' Opposing coaches say preparing for Grinnell is a nightmare. Where Arseneault Jr. spends no time scouting his opponent outside of watching previous games against his own team, opponents are left scrambling. 'It just throws a wrench into your season where basically we tell our guys, 'All right, everything we worked on the last three months, throw it out the window,'' Ripon College coach Kenny Finco said. 'No one in our league likes when they have them coming up on the schedule.' Many teams practice against six or seven scout-team players to prepare starters to handle and break the press. Finco overhauled his game plan to use 10 players during the game as part of two five-man shifts that could rotate when Grinnell players substituted. He also implemented a 1-2-2 zone defense to make it easier for players to know what spot they needed to be in on the court. 'Sometimes, you're like, 'Man I've got to go play Grinnell?'' Schweer said. 'But the game is fun because it's so much different than anything else that you go against.' The pregame goal Arseneault Jr. requested against Ripon wasn't attained but it also wasn't far from being met. Grinnell attempted 43 first-half field goals and 31 3-pointers to enter halftime trailing 51-46. Grinnell tied the game at 71 on Te Huki's baseline jumper before fading in one of its worst performances of the season: a 102-85 loss. Advertisement But one moment from the final stretch stood out. Grinnell trailed Ripon 75-71 with nine minutes remaining when junior guard Zach Rosen exited the floor following one of his shifts and yelled to the bench with a smile: 'I love this. There's nothing better.' That's something Arseneault Jr. didn't find in the D-League. Grinnell's players celebrate every forced turnover in the backcourt on the bench as though someone hit a game-tying buzzer-beater. It didn't mean Arseneault Jr. was happy with the result. He and his players remained in the locker room for more than 30 minutes after suffering their first back-to-back losses of the season. When they emerged, they prepared for a five-hour bus ride through the cold night back to Iowa. There was plenty to teach, but with a postseason spot within reach, the show needed to go on. And there was no place Arseneault Jr. would have rather been. (Top photo of David Arseneault Jr.: Courtesy of Marc Duebener / Grinnell College)
