rub327

SoCal High School & Prep Report

Correction: Ruben Douglas Is Not
The CIF Scoring Leader. . .Well, Maybe He Is.--(March 27, 1998)

Well, who can blame us, really for saying in the last three articles (Times All-Valley, Southern Section All-CIF Teams, and Players of the Year articles) that Ruben Douglas was the "state's highest scoring" player this season, especially when the Times (in several stories) and the CIF also said as much. But they and we were wrong. Well, maybe they were wrong.

We're not sure, and neither is anyone else. Here's the source of the confusion:

According to a little read and small print article contained in the last page of Cal-Hi Sports (Vol 19, No. 27, March 17, 1998 issue), page 5, under the caption "Final Notes & Highlights", the state's scoring leader this season is not Douglas, but someone from the North Coast Section, Fremont Chrisitian's Steve McIlwain.

There was the story, buried in Cal Hi way at the back, in print so small you could barely read it.

But here's what it said:

"Fremont Christian's Steve McIlwain scored 45 points last week in a Div. V regional playoff win over Liberty Christian, then had 35 in a loss to Rincon Valley Christian. That gave the 6'-0" guard a final total of 971 points in 28 games for a 34.7 average. He thus finishes as the state scoring leader, just ahead of Bell-Jeff's Ruben Douglas (34.2) and Glendora's Casey Jacobsen (33.4)."

That's what Cal-Hi Sports reported.

But let's do the math.

971 points over 28 games is not 34.7 points per game. Well, if you round upwards, it's 34.7. But if you don't round at all, it's 34.6 points per game.

Hmmmm.

And we checked and found that the Cal-Hi story was wrong about Ruben's final point average.

Let's do some math, aided by the Thursday edition of the L.A. Times Valley edition, which at page 14, has all the final season stats. The Times says that Ruben played in 31 games, and compiled 1073 points.

That's an average of 34.6.

Solid. No rounding up or down. 34.6.

So both Ruben Douglas and Steve McIlwain are the scoring leaders, at least as far as we're concerned. Right?

Well they are unless you want to get really technical about it.

If so, then McIlwain's average is 34.678571 points per game, while Ruben's is only a paltry 34.612903.

That means, if the numbers are correct, that McIlwain is actually the scoring leader by 0.065641 points per game, i.e., less than one point per game.

Of course Ruben still scored the most points (we think) of any player in California this season.

So at least Ruben is the leading scorer in total points, if not average.

We just thought you should know.