Iowa History Daily: On February 2, 1927, Roy Buchanan of Conway dropped an astounding 84 points on Gravity to set the Iowa High School Boys Basketball individual scoring record. Although details of the gain remain scarce, the IHSAA recognizes the effort as the state’s best.
Starting at center for the Conway Cyclones, Buchanan also apparently played for a team in Clearfield during the season. Newspaper reports stand few and far between, and contest results seem sketchy at best. The Clearfield team, which often also featured Buchanan at center played home games at the local opera house, and played a strange assortment of teams ranging from an all-star group out of Des Moines to a group of local alumni.
Local newspapers fail to report on the game in which Buchanan set the state scoring record. The Iowa High School record book states Buchanan scored 84 points in the 105-5 Conway win over the Gravity Grizzly Bears. Later in the year, when the Clearfield paper reported on the all-county team following a tournament of area high school teams during March, Buchanan ended up on the 1st team after leading the Conway squad over his occasional teammates from Clearfield.
The 84-point performance broke the previous record of 76 set by Gary Wolcott of Battle Creek in 123-3 win over Arthur High School during 1921. In 2019, Central City’s Nick Reid made a run at the record when he scored 76 in a 86-76 overtime victory against East Buchanan. #IowaOTD #IowaHistoryDaily #IowaHistoryCalendar
