BakerBoy

sportscentr:

gotemcoach:

GODDAMN: The Pistol breaks the NCAA scoring record

This photo was taken after Pete Maravich passed Oscar Robertson on the career college scoring list.  Maravich is still first on the list, with 3,667 points, and likely never to be passed.  His closest competitor (Freeman Williams, ‘74-‘78) is over 400 points behind him.

But here’s the rub…

Pete Maravich was a freshman at Louisiana State University in 1966.  At that time, freshman could not play varsity basketball.  The Pistol scored 3,667 in just 3 seasons, averaging 44.2 points per game, for his career (also an NCAA record).

Oh, and just one more thing: when Pistol Pete played college basketball, there was no 3-point line.  Sam King, who covered LSU for the Baton Rouge State-Times studied play-by-play charts of Maravich’s senior season and determined the Pistol averaged 7.2 baskets per game, behind what would have been the college 3-point line.  That’s an extra 7+ points each game, which would have pushed his average above 50 per contest.

Chew on that.

@gotem_coach

Pistol Pete had some of the most insane college stats ever. He averaged over 44 points per game, but also had almost six assists per game, and AVERAGED a whopping 38 shots per game. The ball was in his hands constantly. To put this in perspective, the second guy on the scoring list, Freeman Williams (better known as pickup basketball legend Duck Johnson in “White Men Can’t Jump”) played four years in college - but put up 250 fewer shots. Pistol Pete took 1200 more shots than fourth-place Oscar Robertson did in his three-year college career - Robertson shot 53.5% from the field; Pete was only at 43.8%. Which leads to two conclusions:

1. Pistol Pete was incredible at getting off a shot, and the degree of difficulty of some of those efforts hurt his percentages.

2. If you are a 44% shooter, and you want 38 shots per game, it really helps if your dad is the basketball coach.