GREENVILLE, ILL. • The flow and speed of traffic on the court at Greenville College failed to follow standard conventions of basketball from the opening tip-off.
The ball moved as if placed in a pinball machine, the direction changing haphazardly amid deflections and steals and the urgent desire to score. It was exactly what Greenville coach George Barber wanted to see.
Pressure, disruption and mayhem.

 
The opening minute of Greenville’s meeting with Eureka College was like nothing often seen. The first shot came within one second of the tip-off. A 13-second span produced three Greenville steals.
Then, 38 seconds into the game, five players arrived at the scorer’s table to replace the home team’s starters, who were clearly winded.
This continued for 40 minutes and an overtime until Greenville, 50 miles east of St. Louis, was celebrating a 145-142 win, which concluded with a half-court buzzer-beater by Kenny Greene.
That is how they roll at the Division III school, where Barber coaches a system that has allowed the Panthers to average 132.8 points through 18 games and put them on pace to challenge the NCAA single-season record of 132.4.
A piece of the Rick Pitino coaching tree, Barber has been at Greenville for 17 years. But he has run the frantic system for just two seasons and will put it on display at 8 Wednesday night at Fontbonne University.
“This has infused a little bit of life into me,” Barber said. “We weren’t that successful, kind of middle-of-the-pack. We find ways to champion the place but this has been really fun. I always think if you don’t have good players it could really go south on you. I don’t have a sense of this taking us somewhere or putting us on the map. I’m just having fun.”
The system
The Grinnell system was familiar to Barber when his athletics director suggested he give it a try. Barber has always liked to press and play uptempo, but he bristled at the thought of implementing a variation of the style made famous at Loyola Marymount, which set the D-I record of 122.4 points per game in 1989-90.
“I said, ‘Is that really basketball?’” Barber said. “I didn’t know how I felt about it.”
As he contemplated ways to get more players involved, the change made more sense. Dave Arseneault started this specific style at Grinnell College in Iowa. It spread, most notably to the University of Redlands in California, where coach Gary Smith’s team set the single-season scoring record for all divisions.
Smith co-wrote a book called “The System.” The opening line: “If you’re interested in coaching The System, you’re probably desperate. Or crazy. Or both.”
Barber read the book twice before telling an assistant coach he wanted to invite Smith to Greenville to spend a week teach his methods.
“I told him if we invited Gary, we had to do it. There was no turning back,” Barber said. “So, I called and told him I’d read the book. Then I said, ‘Don’t hang up on me, but would you come to Illinois for a week to help me put this in?’ I told him I had to know how hard you’ve got to play to play this style.”
Barber paid for Smith to travel to Greenville and put him up for several nights at the Econo Lodge. He took him to square dancing night with the women’s team, and they went fishing.
By day, Smith taught the Greenville staff “The System,” which includes five basic tenets — all of which are crazy on the surface. The goals are to take 100 shots per game, shoot 50 3-pointers, grab 35 percent of the available offensive rebounds, force 32 turnovers and — most critical — take 25 more shots than the opponent.
“We had a preseason camp and he told us we were going to force 32 turnovers a game,” Greene said. “I said, ‘How is that possible?’ I racked my brain trying to figure out how you force 32 turnovers in 40 minutes. I didn’t understand that at all.”
Smith told Barber that achieving all five goals would assure a win 99 percent of the time. Barber gave him a Greenville T-shirt, said thank you and went about teaching his team.
When Arseneault caught wind of Barber’s plan, he sent him a note, concluding with a sinister sign-off.
“Welcome to the dark side.”
100 in every game

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Barber’s biggest motivation was to involve more players. When he took the dive, he had no choice. Because of the pace, it is incumbent to substitute roughly every minute with five fresh bodies.
Barber and his coaches created a substitution chart including 16 players for each game, making for hockey-like line changes. They plan for 20 shifts per half. They also designate five “finishers,” who might remain on the floor as long as two minutes at the end of a tight game. If a game gets stuck in continuous action for more than a minute, Barber will call for someone to foul to allow for substitutions.
“It’s not your typical seven-, eight-man rotation,” said leading scorer Shane Smith, who averages 20.3 points in 19.9 minutes per game. “It’s a big group of unselfish guys that really makes it work. Everyone gets in on the action. I just love it, I really do.”
Some of the numbers are staggering.
Greenville has seven players who average double-figure points. The Panthers have surpassed 100 points in every game this season with a high of 178. They scored 103 in one half. In their most recent game, the Panthers beat MacMurray 162-135 by scoring 99 in the second half.
It took some time to reach that level. Barber was warned by his AD to give the process time, that frustrations would arise. When the Panthers started 2-10 in 2015-16, Barber considered a return to sanity.
“My wife was praying and we were just about to give up,” he said. “But my AD’s words were ringing in my ears.”
 
Greenville won 10 of its last 12 games and tied for first place in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The Panthers led the country in scoring at 114 per game. This season they are 8-3 in the SLIAC and 14-4 overall.
Barber started his coaching career at Kentucky as a graduate assistant and became an administrative assistant under Pitino, winning a national title in 1996. He was an assistant at Bradley before moving to Greenville.
This style of play is like nothing he’s seen: “This is crazy. This is on steroids.”
The Panthers press from start to finish, even if a game is out of hand. They pursue steals every moment they are playing defense. The first player to receive the ball in the Greenville end of the floor is encouraged to shoot. Barber sends four players to the offensive boards on every shot in an attempt to produce the shot disparity that is desired.
“If a dad stands up with 30 seconds left in the half and says ‘One shot,’ I’m thinking we can get three, maybe four,” Barber said. “That’s our mentality.”
The refusal to slow down led to a situation last season where Greenville won a game by one point after holding a 33-point lead. In another, the Panthers made up a 9-point deficit in the last 90 seconds. Against Eureka last month, a 22-point lead turned into a seven-point deficit before Greenville pulled out the win.
Recruits intrigued
Despite Greenville’s proximity to St. Louis, the team does not have any players from the area on its varsity. Amazingly, Barber has lured eight from California, including Smith and Greene, who attended the same community college.
He pursues players who might not have other opportunities. There are nine D-III basketball programs in California and 27 in Illinois. So, while the move might create a culture shock, there are plenty of interested players.
“We just found a vein of gold with kids from California,” Barber said. “It’s blown up. These kids want to play, so they’ll come all the way across the country. With the new style, they perk their ears up a little bit.”
The recruiting potential could be significant for fringe players who like uptempo basketball. After Grinnell adopted the style of play, Jack Taylor scored 138 points in a 2012 game for a record that still stands.
Barber received a lukewarm response when he informed his best player, Tim Daniel, in 2015 of his plan. Daniel’s response: “I hate Grinnell.” He ended up second in the country with 124 3-pointers and an appreciation for “The System.”
“We’re dead tired every shift, but it definitely works,” Greene said. “Coach told us it would be uptempo, but I got here and it was something totally different than I thought it would be. This is a whole different type of up-tempo.”
A year after wondering if he should revert to a traditional style, Barber can’t envision giving up life as the coach of the highest scoring team in the country. More players are involved. The community has embraced the madness. And the team is successful.
After the 2016 season, the NCAA sent Greenville plaques for leading the country in scoring, steals, forced turnovers and offensive rebounds. They were placed in a display and Barber heard one question from his players.
“We’re doing this again, right coach?”