COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. - It's been almost seventy years now, but even in the immediate aftermath of Bill Sexton's record-breaking scoring performance against Macalester on March 1, 1954, the details were a bit of a blur.
 
Sexton, then a junior superstar on the Saint John's University basketball team, finished with 49 points in the season-closing matchup against the Scots - a milestone that still stands as a single-game program record seven decades later.
 
"I don't remember a whole lot about it now," said Sexton, who earned All-American honors that season - making him the first player in program history to do so. "It's so long ago. But I do remember my teammates hugging me when the game was over. I was kind of in a zone. I think I asked (teammate) Jake Lynch if I ever passed him the ball. He said 'Just once. But I threw it right back to you because you were going so good.'
 
"I know I had 19 field goals that night, so no one else was getting many shots."
 
Indeed, Sexton did finish with 19 field goals and was a perfect 11-for-11 from the free-throw line. It added up to 49, breaking the old program record of 41, which had been set by Bill Christopherson the previous season. 
 
It also broke the MIAC single-game record of 43, which had been set by Paul Saufl of Saint Mary's in 1949. It remained a conference mark until future Los Angeles Laker Devean George of Augsburg scored 52 points against Carleton on Jan. 16, 1999, and it remains the third-highest single-game total in league history today.
 
"The Jasper jumper was terrific as he scored consistently throughout the contest with 12 points in the first quarter, 14 in the second and 8 and 15 in the third and fourth respectively," read the game story in the next day's St. Cloud Times. "He hit on 19 of 32 tries for an average of 59.4 percent, and all but two of his shots were from 17-to-20 feet out."
 
The performance also locked up that season's MIAC scoring title. Sexton entered the game three points ahead of Pat Costello of Saint Mary's. But Costello - who went on to coach basketball at his alma mater from 1975-77 and still resides in Winona - was held to 15 points that night in his team's 83-72 loss to Hamline.
 
The two players had crossed paths just two days before when Costello scored 28 points and Sexton finished with 27 in a 70-60 Saint Mary's win in Winona.
 
Usually, though, they had to keep tabs on each other through accounts in the next day's newspaper.
 
"That was all you had in those days," said Sexton, who ended the season hot, scoring 33 in an 87-86 win over Augsburg on Feb. 23, then adding a combined 76 points against Saint Mary's and Macalester. "You'd pick up the Minneapolis Tribune and it would show the MIAC scoring leaders. So I knew that Pat and I were running neck-and-neck."
 
Sexton - who was inducted into the SJU J-Club Hall of Honor in 2019 - finished his collegiate career with 1,480 points, a total that still ranks fifth in program history. But that night 70 years ago established a standard no Johnnie has reached before or since.
 
(Against intercollegiate competition that is. Bernard Karels once scored 54 points in a matchup against Melrose High School in 1915).
 
Others have approached the milestone over the years. Craig Muyres fell two short, scoring 47 against Concordia on Feb. 2, 1963. Frank  Wachlarowicz scored 41 - matching Christopherson's total - at St. Thomas on Feb. 6, 1977. Darrick Buettner scored 39 against Concordia on Jan. 28, 1989.
 
And just a couple of weeks ago - on Feb. 3 - current junior Kooper Vaughn scored 38 in a 101-62 home victory over St. Scholastica. Vaughn hit 11 3-pointers in that game, tying a single-game school record. But the 3-point shot didn't exist when Sexton played, making Vaughn wonder what his total might have looked like if it had.
 
"It's so impressive he could score that many points without it," said Vaughn, whose team (18-2 MIAC, 20-5 overall) is the top seed in this week's MIAC playoffs and will play host to a semifinal matchup at 7 p.m. Thursday at Sexton Arena. "It just shows how dominant he was when he was playing."
 
Sexton's involvement at Saint John's did not end with his graduation. In fact, it's only grown stronger in the decades that have followed. He went on to a successful career in the insurance business, and served as a member of the school's Board of Regents from 1989-2001. 
 
He and his family, meanwhile, are among the school's biggest donors. The current Sexton Commons on campus is named in honor of his parents, the Hilger Atrium in the SJU Science Center is named in honor of his wife Joyce's parents and the basketball court in Warner Palaestra bears his name. A $10 million pledge in 2004 created the Joyce and William Sexton Family Endowed Scholarship, as well as supporting the Abbey Guest House project and SJU athletics.
 
In 2000, he received the Fr. Walter Reger Award for service to his alma mater – the SJU Alumni Association's highest honor. And his family legacy continues at SJU today. His grandson Tommy Ornburg is one of the team's student managers this season, while grandson William Ornburg graduated in 2017.
 
Meanwhile, his performance that night in 1954 remains unduplicated all these years later.
 
"Saint John's has had so many great basketball players come through over the years," said Sexton, who turned 90 last September. "So to think that record is still on the books is amazing to me."