Great feats by I.C. Norcom High School basketball players have come to be expected.

If it’s not too late, former Greyhound Johnny Morris, who still lives in Portsmouth, may even deserve a page in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”

On Feb. 22, 1961, Morris accomplished something unlikely ever to be matched or approached or even dreamed of.

Morris scored 59 points — in the first half alone! — in Norcom’s game at Mary N. Smith High School on the Eastern Shore.

Known as “Pep,” he was just warming up.

The 6-foot Morris continued torching the nets until he had 127 points — all by himself — in a 139-33 Greyhounds victory.

Wearing the No. 11 jersey, the only number the Portsmouth high school has retired, Morris mixed a two-handed set shot with endless fast-break layups for 57 field goals.

For gravy he added 13 free throws with an underhanded “granny style” motion.

The game was played under the auspices of the Virginia Interscholastic Association, the governing body for the state’s African-American schools until 1969.

The one-game record in the Virginia High School League, the athletic organization that previously governed solely the state’s all-white schools, was 83, set by Freddie James at Portsmouth’s Churchland High School in 1954.

Even 83 sounds impossible until learning that Morris, believe it or not, tallied 95 points by the end of the third quarter during the Norcom-Smith record-breaking game.

To cross the Chesapeake Bay in those days, I.C. Norcom took a ferry. Only in Morris’ case, you might guess he walked on water.