Pistol Pete: 44 points per game

Got to see him play against Florida in Alligator Alley when I was a kid. His ball handling was mesmerizing. I will never forget it, and I've never seen anything like him on a basketball court since.

quote:

---

Maravich is the GOAT in college. Not even a discussion

---

Pete played for a losing team while being coached by his dad who let him take 38 shots per game

Kareem averaged 15 shots and still put up 27 PPG and 16 RPG. If his coach let him take 38 shots, he would’ve put up 66 PPG.

Of course, his percentages would’ve gone down but easily would’ve averaged 50+ in Pete’s situation.

Instead he played for John Wooden and won 3 championships.

People understood this distinction in opportunities at the time, which is why Kareem won POTY over Pete in 1969

quote:

---

Maravich is the GOAT in college. Not even a discussion

---

This is gonna piss some people off but Pete was a side show act, Lew Alcindor was the greatest NCAA player ever and there isn’t a close second.

3× NCAA champion (1967–1969)
3× NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player (1967–1969)
3× National college player of the year (1967–1969)
3× Consensus first-team All-American (1967–1969)
3× First-team All-Pac-8 (1967–1969)[a]

Pete was great but when your daddy is coach,lets you shoot 40 shots a game and you lose as many as you win, you don’t get the GOAT label.

Still holds the Coleman Coliseum record for points in Tuscaloosa, 69. There's a good photo of him flipping off the crowd as he leaves the court. Ala won the game. 106-104 (26 of 57 from the field, 17 of 21 from the line).

"40 shots a game"? Because he was the only SEC-quality player on his team. Alcindor's teams were loaded with All Americans & that's a primary reason his teams were so successful. Put him on LSU's teams & he'd have had to take similar number of shots. Had ESPN existed back then, Pete would have been a national sports celeb. There was barely any tv coverage of college basketball outside of the NCAA's.

Wasn’t the common strategy to let Pete shoot and shut down the other 4?

Well, then Pete should have had a better pro career then once he got some help. Oh yeah, that didn’t happen either.

and no fr year stats to count

that dude almost broke it due to covid years

quote:

---

Pistol's senior year team at LSU went 22-10 and finished second in the SEC.

---

Losing record in SEC (which sucked at the time) in 2 of 3 years

quote:

---

The SEC leader in assists that season by a wide margin: Pistol Pete Maravich.

---

Nice. He still averaged 39 shots per game attempts per game that year and shot 42% from the field, all while essentially playing every minute.

Great player no doubt, he proved that in the NBA. But there are a handful of players that could’ve done the same if given the opportunity, and Kareem is at the top of the list.

And we haven’t even talked about defense. Kareem was absolutely dominant rim protector. Pete was average at best. There’s a reason Pat Riley called him “soft” on defense and the most overrated superstar in the NBA