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.
