I asked AI about this statistic.
Its one of the rarest statistical outcomes in all of basketball at the college or NBA level, teams almost never finish a game with more turnovers than points. When it does happen, its usually in extremely low‑level games or historically bad offensive performances.
Why Its So Rare
A typical team scores 6075 points in college and 105115 in the NBA, while committing only 1015 turnovers on average.
To have more turnovers than points, a team would need:
- Extremely low scoring (single digits or low teens)
- Extremely high turnovers (2030+)
- Very few shot attempts or a dominant opposing defense
Those conditions almost never align in high‑level basketball.
How Often Does It Happen?
Because no database tracks this exact anomaly, we infer from scoring and turnover distributions:
NBA
- No modern NBA team has ever finished a game with more turnovers than points.
- Even the worst offensive games (e.g., 49-point games) still involve ~15 turnovers nowhere close.
NCAA Division I
- It is extraordinarily rare but not impossible.
- The only known modern D‑I example is:
- Savannah State (2018) scoring 10 points in a half with 20 turnovers, but not for a full game.
- Full-game cases are so rare they are usually reported as national news when they occur.
Lower Divisions / High School
- At the high school or small-college level, it happens occasionally:
- Teams scoring under 20 points with 2540 turnovers.
- These games are usually blowouts or mismatches.
🧠 Why You Almost Never See It
A team would need to score fewer than 1012 points while committing 20+ turnovers.
Even terrible teams usually score at least 30+ points, and even turnover-prone teams rarely exceed 25 turnovers.
Mathematically, the distributions almost never overlap.
🔍 Bottom Line
- NBA: Essentially never.
- NCAA D‑I: Maybe once every decade, if that.
- Lower levels: Rare but possible.
- Overall: One of the rarest statistical outcomes in basketball.
So is it a record or not?
Ncaa should pay out some of that postseason money for unique records instead, they still owe us for the red zone scoring pct from hudspeth days
"Full-game cases are so rare they are usually reported as national news when they occur." But cajuns dont even get that, lol
Does that 3 games in march rule apply to the womens teams
While I am a big UL softball fan I have to admit that I don't follow UL women's basketball much and have probably attended about a total of 15 games going back to the early 80's. Regardless, I do wish them success and Brodhead seems to be a good guy. There has been very little success with this program and this season might be their worst in recent memory or for that matter, ever. I'm just not sure this program can ever be that successful and compete for a conference title given the apathy by most fans and the administration's lack of support or even caring.
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