Carson James’ 23rd birthday was special.
On Jan. 17, the graduate student shooting guard for Johns Hopkins men’s basketball scored the 1,000th point of his career on what has become his trademark turnaround fadeaway jumper. And the icing on the cake was that the Blue Jays walloped Centennial Conference rival Washington College, 88-47, at Goldfarb Gymnasium for the team’s ninth straight victory.
“It was really cool,” said James, who reached the milestone on his 25th and 26th points of the night on 10 of 28 shots — all of which were season highs. “The way I got it, that’s not usually the way I play. I’m not usually about taking as many shots as possible. But on that day, I think it was all right.”
That was more than OK, according to first-year coach Ryan Cain, who said James’ teammates encouraged him to continue playing James until he completed the accomplishment.
“I think it says a lot about his leadership in the sense that every guy on our team wanted to keep him in that game and wanted him to get it that day and was willing to sacrifice a role or an opportunity to get into the game for him to be able to do so,” Cain said. “I think that just shows how guys care about him as a person and a player.”
The 6-foot-2, 175-pound James’ march to his achievement was forged in countless one-on-one battles in Tucson, Arizona, with friend Sam Beskind, who is two inches taller and 15 pounds heavier. Tired of watching his layups get blocked by Beskind, a graduate student shooting guard at the Colorado School of Mines, James developed an array of short- to mid-range shots.
“I had to learn how to use fakes and things like that to get a little separation to get my shots off,” he said.
James’ two favorite mid-range shots are the turnaround fadeaway jumper that earned him his milestone and a bump fadeaway jumper in which he initiates contact with a defender to create some space before falling back. He also has a jab-step, legs-apart jumper he developed with former Blue Jays great Conner Delaney and assistant coach Matt Colpoys that he can use inside and outside the 3-point line.
Despite his comfort with those types of shots, James said he didn’t attempt many of them in his first two seasons. Former Johns Hopkins coach Josh Loeffler admitted that he bought into the analytics that emphasize 3-pointers, layups and dunks instead of mid-range shots — until Johns Hopkins ran into defenses geared toward hounding the perimeter and the lane.
“Because of that, we had to rethink things a little bit and say, ‘Should we be this dogmatic about the shots that we’re looking for?’” said Loeffler, now an assistant coach at Division I Cincinnati. “What we came up with was, ‘We have these guys who can come up with these shots, and it would be really silly if we didn’t allow them to use their gifts and to shoot some of these.’”
That was music to James’ ears.
“It was kind of just a rhythm thing from there,” he said. “Once I saw a couple go in during games, it became a little bit more regular.”
Graduate student power forward Sidney Thybulle, who has lived with James for two years, quipped that his housemate often looks off-balance while attempting his shots. But Thybulle said James has earned his teammates’ trust.
“We kind of joke he almost has his own 2K animation where he drives to the basket, gets the defender going, and then pivots back and shoots the fadeaway,” he said, referencing the popular NBA video game. “He’s pretty good at that, and every time it goes up, I think it’s going in.”
James is no one-trick pony, Cain insisted. While the 6-8, 245-pound Thybulle is the conference’s reigning two-time Defensive Player of the Year, Cain pointed out that James has guarded some of the league’s top scorers.
James limited Ursinus’ Trevor Wall — the conference’s most prolific producer at 21.1 points per game — to seven points on 2 of 10 shooting and three turnovers in a 91-58 rout on Jan. 6 and Muhlenberg’s Giovanni Rubino (No. 2 at 17.2 points) to six points on 3 of 12 shooting and two turnovers in a 75-55 thumping on Jan. 20. Franklin and Marshall’s Vakaris Grauslys (No. 4 at 15.7 points) scored 14 points, but missed seven of 11 shots and committed four turnovers in a 74-54 pummeling on Dec. 6.
James’ work on both ends of the floor and in the locker room as a team co-captain with Thybulle explains why Cain is grateful for his presence.
“You can’t measure his impact on what he does for our program on a daily basis — whether that’s a practice or a game,” he said. “He’s a true leader and a really great player, and we’re fortunate to have him.”
James, who already has a bachelor’s in biomedical engineering, knew long ago he would return for a fifth year of eligibility. Thybulle, who earned a bachelor’s in computer science, took a little longer to decide.
“Just having someone to do it with makes it that much easier because we’re in the same master’s program, and we’re taking the same classes,” Thybulle said of he and James pursuing a master’s in science and engineering management. “ I don’t know if I would have come back or not, but I think having him made it that much easier.”
James’ success has become embodied by the team’s. After a 2-4 start, the Blue Jays are riding a 12-game winning streak, tied for first in the Centennial Conference with Franklin and Marshall with identical 10-1 records, and ranked No. 24 in the most recent D3hoops.com poll.
James said he prioritizes helping the team avenge last year’s exit from the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 more than any personal accolades.
“I feel like we’re playing much more to our standard now than maybe at the beginning of the year, and that’s really what it’s about,” he said. “The 1,000-point thing is great in terms of putting in a lot of work to try to help this team win. It was a really cool milestone for me, but it’s not exactly what I care about.”
Johns Hopkins at Ursinus
Saturday, 3 p.m.