High Point Is A Deeply Weird School

A 12 seed upsetting a 5 seed is not the most unexpected NCAA tournament result, and yet it can still offer a chance to partake in one of March’s most pleasurable traditions: learning about a school and program that 95 percent of viewers had never heard of prior to tip-off. Sometimes this process leads to charming discoveries (Florida Gulf Coast University’s campus lake) and sometimes it doesn’t (Oral Roberts University’s whole deal). No. 12 High Point University prevailed over No. 5 Wisconsin, 83-82, on the first day of the tournament, which means it’s time to learn about a school.

HPU is a private Methodist university located in North Carolina. The basketball team won the Big South this year with a 31-4 record, and beat Winthrop in the conference championship game by 15 points. They’ve also got what every memorable tournament underdog needs: a quirky gimmick player. That would be senior guard Chase Johnston, who comes in off the bench and does nothing but attempt and hit threes at a ludicrous rate. I mean that literally: Johnston played 12 minutes per game this season and 138 of his 143 field goal attempts came from behind the arc, where he shot 49 percent. The fun little grace note here is that he hit the game-winning shot for High Point on Thursday, and it was his first two-point make of the season:

All right, what else do we have? Ah, here’s a Wall Street Journal article about how High Point became a “magnet for wealthy students.” Hmmm, OK:

On a typical weeknight, students at High Point University might sit down to filet mignon at “1924 PRIME,” the on-campus steakhouse. This isn’t a mere perk. Servers are told to coach the young diners on body language, professional attire, which fork to use and when to salt their food.

Ah, huh:

Also on campus is an airplane-cabin interior, because sitting next to an executive on a plane could offer a golden opportunity—one young people should rehearse for. The campus concierge offers students airport shuttle service for free if they wear a High Point University shirt; otherwise it costs $95—a lesson in brand awareness.

Wooing teens and parents is key. Campus tours are often in golf carts. And student Corey Kalinoski remembers being impressed by friendly staff and the personalized parking spot with his name when he arrived for a tour.

“As far as I’m concerned, we have no amenities,” Qubein says. “We are not in the business of pampering students. We are in the business of preparing our students.”

Oh, brother.

Let’s get back to the basketball team. The coach! What about the coach? Is he a charming fella destined to become the next Jim Larranaga, or is he an intense weirdo who felt compelled to start detailing his grievances with non-conference scheduling as soon as the buzzer sounded?

“It looks pretty obvious to me that high majors need to play mid-majors during the season because they said we ain’t played nobody, we played somebody now!” is what a notably wet Flynn Clayman had to say right after his team’s thrilling victory. After being asked, “How’d you do it?” he continued: “Feels unreal. Because I know how good of a team we had, but nobody would play us. Just like they wouldn’t play Miami (Ohio), but they gotta play us in this tournament!”

When Clayman made it to the dais for his postgame press conference, still alarmingly damp, he was not ready to let go of this subject. Clayman, speaking like a drunk guy trying to hold back tears, breathed heavily into the mic and went on:

And it’s pretty obvious to me that something needs to be done about this non-conference scheduling. High Point and Miami of Ohio are 2-0 in quad-one games. We couldn’t get games. They couldn’t get games. Akron couldn’t get games. UNCW couldn’t get games. Belmont couldn’t get games. We won 22 of our last 23 games and we didn’t move up one spot in the metrics. Not one. We won 22 of our 23. We’ve won 25 games by double digits. [Wisconsin] is a fantastic team that beat five Top 10 teams. If we can get games like this on a neutral court and some home games, I think we’d know who’s really the best teams.

Buddy, that’s what the tournament is for. You were invited to a neutral court to face a big program from a power conference and prove that you are better than them, and you did that successfully. And you’ll get the chance to do it again on Saturday! Sounds like you are getting everything you asked for.

I’d say that Clayman’s fixation on this issue has tarnished High Point’s achievement, but he’s actually a perfect figurehead for this school. Who better to represent a theme-park campus built for the children of Wall Street bankers than a guy who cries about how unfair the world is being to him even as he succeeds?