Photo credit to Glasgow Daily Times
Jobby Howard was feeling it on Monday night.
“I knew I had to bring it because of what I was up against,” Howard told The Sporting Times. “I knew the crowd was gonna be tough, but I feel like I played hard from start to finish.”
The Caverna senior guard unloaded for a game-high 65 points — a new school record — as he shot 21-of-39 from the field in the Colonels’ 119-103 overtime loss at Adair County in an offensive slugfest, and one of the highest-scoring games in Kentucky boys’ basketball history.
Playing against the top-rated freshman in the country in the Indians’ Zion Harmon, who finished with 54 points on 19-of-32 shooting from the floor with 12 assists, Howard nearly led Caverna to an upset win on the road. The Colonels trailed by as much as 19 early but fought back in the second half to tie the game and force overtime.
“I told our guys before the game that big challenges are also big opportunities. Jobby embraced that,” Caverna coach Josh Davis told The Sporting Times. “He wasn’t scared of the moment and just put on a show. You have to have a special night to have the home fans rooting for you a little bit on the road, and they showed him a lot of love.”
Howard’s 65 points passed Mason Faulkner’s previous school record of 57 points, while Harmon topped the previous Adair County school record of 52 set by Kevin Bridgewaters.
The two teams’ combined total of 222 points is tied for the ninth-highest combined score in a single game in KHSAA history, while it was the highest-scoring game this century and just the fifth this century to cross the 200-point mark.
Howard’s 65 points is tied for the 16th-highest scoring mark by a single player in a game in KHSAA history. The guard gives much credit to his Caverna teammates for helping him have the night he did.
“I wanna give a huge shoutout to my teammates. They went to war with me from the start,” said Howard. “They knew when I got in the zone, so they looked for me all night and I couldn’t be more proud to not only call them my teammates, but my brothers.”
Senior writer Tyler Mansfield can be reached at mansfield.sportingtimes@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter at @_TylerMansfield.
