272-0: How the untold story of the greatest basketball game ever played came to light

The quest to find a basketball record, a folk hero, and most importantly: the truth.

Sometimes not knowing is easier than knowing.

The burden of knowledge can be both a curse and a blessing. Information simultaneously derails progress and pushes it forward; the dichotomy of living with something you would’ve rather not known creates a cognitive dissonance that becomes impossible to live with. 

When I was five years old, the basketball gods, seemingly devoid of reason, decided to burden me with one of the most curious bits of knowledge you’ve never heard. I haven’t slept the same since. 

My own personal gospel came to me in the form of World’s Strangest Basketball Stories, by Bart Rockwell. Published in 1993, the Chinese year of the Rooster, the book was 92 pages of pure basketball bliss for young readers to enjoy. The anthology of stories managed to slip past the New York Times’ bestseller list. It dodged and juked Pulitzer nominations. Instead, it ended up in the hands of my great aunt, who taught reading in the New York City public school system for decades. Naturally, she lent a couple of books over to my family for our entertainment, and entertained we were.

I worked my way through the pile of books before stumbling on our friend, Mr. Rockwell. His magnum opus was exactly as he intended it to be - wacky. Just so you understand the kind of juggernaut we’re working with here, the book currently holds a 4.14 star review on Goodreads. The one review, from Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance reads as follows:

Everyone in my family liked this book. We all loved reading stories about the pro ball player who missed the most free throws (13 in a row), the shot made at the buzzer from the other side of the court (over 89 feet), and the most lopsided high school basketball shutout (136-0). A kind of Ripley's Believe It or Not for basketball.

You read that right. Everyone in her family. Unbelievable. And indeed, these were some of the standout moments of the collection. The NBA player who missed 13 free throws in a row. The 89-foot shot that was drained at the buzzer. The 136-0 basketball game. 

Sure. Color me impressed.

Somehow, the most unbelievable record mentioned escaped the wonder of Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance. It slithered by my great aunt. It got past the other six people who rated Bart’s book on Goodreads, and it consequently escaped the scrutiny of the rest of America.

It didn’t get past me.

Don’t worry, everyone. My keen eye, which I seem to have retained from my days as a child, was working overtime while I was reading this book. Something jumped out to me on page 11. The Swedish Scoring Machine. Read it, and you may never be the same. The demons still haunt me.

Yeah. No. Not happening.

You’re telling me that some 13 year old kid named Mats Wermelin woke up on February 5th, 1974, in Sweden. Scored 272 points in a game. And DIDN’T LET ANYONE ELSE (ON EITHER TEAM!!!!) SCORE!!!

I’m calling bullshit. I’m saying hell fucking no to that. Even five-year-old me knew this was horseshit. Sorry, Mats, but 272-0 is fucking fake. You’re a fraud. You too, Rockwell. Cut it with the fiction. How the FUCK would that be possible. A THIRTEEN year old!?!? Sorry. Case closed. 

Even if I wanted to believe this, it just wouldn’t make any sense. Let’s assume these Swedes played a 40 minute game (as per FIBA rules). That would mean Wermelin scored 136 per half. That’s 6.8 points per minute. Knowing that there was no three-point line back then, it would equate to a basket every 17.6 seconds. And that’s for 40 minutes, straight. Yeah, right. Bart, I don’t know where you got this information, but it sure as hell isn’t a reputable source. I suggest you stick to writing abou-

what.

WHAT???

Bart’s source was the 1985-86 Guinness Book of World Records. Yup, that Guinness Book of World Records. That was the first year the game was mentioned in print, making it 11 years after the game allegedly occurred that the world found out about it. Strange, but I’ll let it slide. 

Don’t believe me? That’s completely fair. At first, I didn’t believe myself. So I went straight to the source. Shoutout to archive.org, who had the entire book available for online browsing.

After scrolling through the pages for far too long, I stumbled upon this. 

Bingo. 

The day after the game, the New York Times quoted Wermelin, saying “My goal is to become a professional player in the United States.” Here’s an LA Times article citing the game. Here’s a FIBA article that mentions the record (curiously enough, this cites his point total at 232, the only publication to do so). That’s the governing sanction in basketball corroborating this story. You can’t get much more legit than that.

Fuck me, I guess. There’s a chance that this really happened. In real life. Bart, the onus is no longer on you. You are a free and innocent man. I will now treat you as such. None of this was your fault.

Alright then, let’s say that the most unlikely thing we’ve ever heard of really did occur. If this did happen, where’s the Disney feature film? Where’s ESPN? Where’s SportsCenter, and the Today show, and Good Morning America? How about the NBA?You too, Adam Silver? Why hasn’t the Basketball Hall of Fame come knocking? Where’s the Netflix documentary?

Why does nobody care? 

And most importantly… where the FUCK is Mats Wermelin?? What happened to the little kid with big dreams, hoping to make an impression on the court in the states someday?

As you can imagine, having to go to bed without these answers kept a kid like me up late at night. I tossed and turned, hoping that one day I would find closure.

I lived unfulfilled for years. I graduated from elementary school. Then middle school. Then high school. The pissed off five year old was now a pissed off college student, still with no solutions.

It wasn’t until about two years ago that I realized I had to take things into my own hands.

A Fool’s Errand

Fresh off my latest Jon Bois phase, I figured that if I wanted the answers to my questions, I would have to find them myself. I started looking for information online, convinced that I would eventually turn my findings into a video essay.

Unfortunately, after dusting off the old magnifying glass, I discovered that there’s just not a lot of information out there about the legitimacy of our buddy Mats’ historic game.

An Orlando Magic internet forum mentioned the game in a June 2007 thread. RealGM got in on the fun, too. There’s a 2011 Wordpress article that discusses the game, but misquotes Mats as being 15 years of age. That’s… about it. 

Even Reddit, home of the best self-proclaimed sleuths the internet has to offer, seems far from any answers. 7 years ago, this thread was posted on the NBA subreddit, quoting a now-defunct Dime Magazine article. It picked up some traction, but again, nobody really had much to offer in terms of clarifying information. Most of the comments looked like this.

The next year, TheMason15 posted essentially the same thing, but for the first time since 1974, there was a breakthrough. Or at least a potential one.

Mats Wermelin is on LinkedIn. Is this our guy??

TheMason15 explains that this Mats is located in Norway, and thus probably isn’t our guy. But I reviewed his profile a bit further, and the ages line up pretty well. This Mats Wermelin spent his career in banking, spending his time in both his native Sweden and the United States.

Then I clicked on his ‘Education’ tab, and everything seemed to fall into place.

Don’t worry, I didn’t know what Saltsjöbadens Samskola meant either. Luckily, we have Google Translate on our side.

Hold on. Saltsjöbadens is a PLACE? In SWEDEN? That Mats Weremlin went to school in? Bear with me while I just -

My jaw was on the floor. Lo and behold, it’s a suburb of Stockholm, which if you recall, was the site of the infamous tournament with the 272-0 score.

This feels like our guy.

And then, right as I was on the verge of a breakthrough back in 2022 - I suddenly lost interest. My YouTube career would have to be put on hold. Maybe I was moving back into school, or my job as a camp counselor didn’t allow time for these childish matters. But for a while, that was it. Radio silence. 

Then, last summer, my journey resumed again. I couldn’t let the story end there. My heart yearned for closure. The burden of knowing was weighing me down more than ever. 

I hopped back in the saddle, dusted off the old magnifying glass, and set out to see what I could find this go-around. At first, it was more of the same: nothing. But just as I thought all hope was lost, my prayers were answered in the form of a tweet. Fear not, for all of this suffering was with purpose. I had struck GOLD.

Holy. SHIT. 

Answers Within Reach

In all of his glory, there he was. Mats Wermelin, the man who proved that truth is indeed stranger than fiction, was smiling back at me through the computer screen. Eat shit, Wilt Chamberlain. 100 is way less than 272. This goes way harder, and he probably met ten times the amount of chicks that you did.

Sportshuset, which translates to The Sports House, is a Swedish podcast that discusses the sports world, typically interviewing popular Nordic sports figures. And in Episode 273, Mats Wermelin steps into the studio for a quick interview.

I’m not sure if anyone has ever clicked on an Apple Podcast link as quickly as I did for the first time right there. It was showtime. An State Farm ad blared, followed by the sweet intro music that all podcasts seem to have. I sat on the edge of my seat. It was time for me to find out what really happened. The TRUTH.

The truth was that the entire podcast was in Swedish. I was heartbroken. My journey to see the king ended in heartbreak, and I was being turned away at the door.

Even still, I had found a group of people who had the answers I was searching for. I sent a cold DM to @sportshusetpodcast, and started to play the waiting game. But my personal calendar was unforgiving.

On June 21st, I reached out via DM.

On June 24th, I left America for the summer for a summer internship in Tel Aviv.

On June 25th, Sportshuset replied to me.

I’m not sure what went through my mind at the time, but I never followed up with Sportshuset when I received their DM. I could plead innocent due to the time-zone difference, or starting an internship halfway across the world, or my intensive clubbing schedule. Regardless of my excuse, it’s my biggest regret writing this article. I tried following up with them while writing this piece, and was ultimately left on read without a response. I really can’t blame them. They’re still the heroes of this story. I hope they can forgive me one day. 

Instead, I set my sights on a different plan. If the Swedes wouldn’t translate the story for me, Google Translate would. Hell, maybe Mats would even connect with me on LinkedIn and we could have a chat about the whole ordeal. Speaking of - what was that sly fox up to, after all?

I looked further into Mason’s LinkedIn theory, and everything that I said above was… completely wrong. The guy who went to Saltsjöbadens Samskola was… just a guy. Maybe his career high was 30. Perhaps it was even 40, God bless his soul. But I know damn well it wasn’t 272. The poor guy must’ve been so confused with all of the profile views the Reddit thread sent him six years ago.

The good news was that now that we had a photo to match up, there was another Mats Wermelin on LinkedIn to compare it to. And this one was our guy.

Look at how charming our protagonist looks. He’s been waiting for us. I’m sorry it took this long, Mats.

Naturally, I reached out. And while I waited to hear back, I kept on working. By the grace of God, I found a Swedish audio-to-text transcriber, and now that I had the typed-out version of the podcast, all I had to do was drag and drop my results into Google Translate. Yes, I understand the software is far from perfect, but I was done with waiting. Google usually gets the gist right, and that was good enough for me. The time for answers was now.

I copied. I pasted. And I read the firsthand story of how Mats Wermelin scored 272 points in a game. Here’s what happened.

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The Story of Mats Wermelin

In the early 1970s, Swedish youth basketball ran through Hammarby BC. Located on the fringes of southern Stockholm, the young program dominated at all age levels and divisions. All of their teams enjoyed impressive levels of success, but the U13 team in 1973 was the best one by a mile. After three years of playing together, they still had yet to lose a single game. The squad was easily the best in Stockholm. It was the best U13 team in Sweden. Odds are, they were the best in all of Northern Europe. And the face of that team, bringing up the ball every possession? Our 5’8” protagonist: Mats Wermelin.

Around this time, there was an annual tournament based in Stockholm featuring basketball teams from all around Sweden. Naturally, Hammarby dominated, winning the entire thing three times in a row.

The fourth time around, new management took over for the tournament, and all teams had to re-register again. New qualifying divisions were created from scratch, and teams were being matched up against others that had no business being in the same groups as them. The road to history was being paved.

Hammarby BC won their first group game, 172-2. Game two was even more of a blowout, with a final score of 199-0. The face of the team, Mats Wermelin, had 78 and 65 points, respectively.

After the group stage, there was a free draw that involved all of the teams in the entire tournament. This meant that Hammarby would be matched up against the worst squad in the entire competition. Their coach saw this draw as an opportunity to make history.

After seeing these absurd final scores, Hammarby’s head coach was starting to think about records. He did some research with the Swedish Basketball Association, and found out that some kid from Hageby, a small town across the country, had scored 106 points. That was the national mark to beat.

His plan? Do it in the first half.

According to Mats, the plan was to only chase the record for the first two frames. The team would come out in a full court press, and get the ball to him for every shot. After halftime, the second best player, Johan Dahlstedt, would try to break the record as well. There was some debate over which of the two was better at the time amongst the team, but Mats was the best shooter on the team by a mile. The debate was settled. History time.

Hammarby came out in a lethal 1-3-1 press. They trapped the corners. They attacked ball handlers. They forced turnovers.

And then they got the ball to Mats, who was waiting around the basket to lay the ball in.

There was nothing the other team could do to stop them.

Mats says that over the entire game, their opponents crossed half-court with the ball a maximum of six times. They hit the rim once. They hit the backboard another time. That was it.

At halftime, the score was 152-0. Wermelin had all 152 points. Now it was time for Dahlstedt to make his run at history.

Except… Dahlstedt didn’t want to.

The coach shrugged and looked around. He asked another kid if he wanted to chase the record. He also said no.

The show still belonged to Mats.

The squad walked back out there in the exact same press, and Mats continued to wait for the ball. After another half of the same, the final score was 272-0. Mats had scored all 272 points in the game. He mentioned that despite the historic barrage, he still managed to miss a couple shots from the field, and estimates his shooting percentage to be between 80 and 85%. The Swedish record was his. Hammarby went on to win the tournament with ease.

It wasn’t until a few days later when Aftonbladet, a Swedish daily newspaper, found out about the result of the game. They called up the head coach and said that Mats had broken a world record. News spread locally, then nationally. Guinness World Records would be calling soon.

For a couple years, people locally knew him as the guy who scored 272 points in a game. The expectations were a tall order to live up to. Wermelin went on to play professionally in Sweden for a couple of years, but he never grew much taller than 5’8”. He continued to play at a high level, participating in national events as recently as 2009, before unlacing his sneakers for good.

Today, Mr. Wermelin is an operations manager for JENSEN education, an education administration program located in Stockholm, Sweden. Every now and then, people ask him if the story is really true. He smiles, and says that it was. He misses his playing days, but is still happy with the life he’s lived. Mats’ career may be behind him, but the significance of his record is something he still feels every day.

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Towards the end of his podcast segment, Wermelin mentions that it’s only a matter of time before the story spreads to the USA, to Canada, to central Europe. He expects the Western world to come knocking sooner rather than later.

Somehow, the news of Wermelin’s record never spread to the English-speaking world. There was some brief buzz in Sweden, but that’s been about it. Sure, a handful of publications picked it up, but there was no real story attached to it. It was treated more as a footnote. A fun fact. But the truth was out there, waiting to be found. It just took a little bit of work.

The world deserves to know about Mats and his historic game. I’m not sure if Mr. Wermelin will ever know about this piece. I’ll send a link to Sportshuset, too. I hope I did a good enough job of summarizing the podcast and related story. Maybe people will care. Maybe not. But for the first time, the truth will be accessible.

My five-year-old self would be proud knowing that all these years later, I was able to find the truth. Not only for myself, but for everybody else, too.