By Jacob Ervin, Senior Reporter
With less than two minutes left in the final game, the score was tied 89-89. With more than 500 people watching in excitement, Malik Parsons drove to the basket on Feb. 25.
Although he did not realize it in the moment, Parsons had just etched his name in Northwestern history.
With the made layup, Parsons had scored 43 points and officially broken the school record for most points scored in a game by a Ranger basketball player. The record was previously 41 points and had stood since 1993.
Parsons, who is a health and sports science major in his senior year, was suiting up for his final game as Ranger and was determined to make it count. While the team lost on a last-second shot, he scored 45 points and made his final game a historic one.
Although the occasion was momentous, it was just another chapter in Parsons’ long and continuing journey with the game of basketball.
The 6-foot-3-inch guard grew up on the southeast side of San Diego, where he first started playing basketball. Parsons was raised by his mother along with his older sister and began playing basketball at the age of 5 at the Crescent Park Recreation Center.
Parsons continued to play basketball all the way to high school, where he realized the hardwood was his future.
“I played a lot of sports growing up, but once I got to high school I just stuck to playing basketball,” he said. “That’s where I really fell in love with [basketball], like I really knew this is what I really want to do with my life.”
Although his college career has come to an end, Parsons plans to continue playing basketball professionally overseas after graduating this May.