re: SEC Storied March 12 Pistol Pete on SEC Network

It's an interesting storyline for sure. Pete was coached by his father from almost out of the womb, learning dribbling and ball handling skills. He was by all accounts a legitimate star basketball player, as was proved by his 24.2 ppg career average in 10 years in the NBA.

But one has to wonder: what if Dean Smith let Michael Jordan take over the Tarheels, and the others got out of his way? What if many other top leaders in respective conferences who shot around 18-20-22 pts per gm, had a head coach that designed an offensive system where that kid would get the shoot all the shots, and the others on his team were recruited, coached, and told to play defense, rebound the ball, and hand the ball to the one kid, and then get the hell out of his way?

Everyone talks about the 3,667, and how no one will ever break that record, even in 4 years and with the 3-pt line. No one has hardly ever talked about the 3,166, and how that just might be an even MORE untouchable record, even with 4 years.


67-68:

LSU: 26 gms: 905 - 1,933 (.468)
Pistol: 26 gms: 432 - 1,022 (.422)

68-69:

LSU: 26 gms: 935 - 1,949 (.480)
Pistol: 26 gms: 433 - 976 (.444)

69-70:

LSU: 32 gms: 1,159 - 2,403 (.482)
Pistol: 31 gms: 522 - 1,168 (.447)

Totals:

LSU: 84 gms: 2,999 - 6,285 (.477)
Pistol: 83 gms: 1,387 - 3,166 (.438)


Pistol Pete took 50.4% of his team's shot attempts the entire 3 years he was at LSU. He took just as many shots (slightly more, in fact) as the rest of the team did.

And it wasn't like he was some scoring machine: his career 43.8% shooting % is hardly a NCAA career record. There are many, many Division I college players every year that complete 44% of their shot attempts, if not substantially more.

But the best of them basically are among the 18-20-22 PPG variety - still good enough to warrant all-conference POTY honors, and lottery NBA draft picks. But why don't those guys score 40+ PPG?

It's because they never played for a head coach that designed the entire team system to hand the ball to them every time, and tell the others to get out of his way. In fact, no one can even speak of any other head basketball coach at the college level who has ever done such a thing. Its a totally alien animal.

And look at those stats: the rest of the LSU team NOT named Pete shot 1,612 - 3,119 (.517). The rest of the LSU team shot 51.7% compared to Pistol Pete shooting 43.8%. Seems LSU was a more efficient scorer when Pete wasn't the one doing the scoring. But he still took as many attempts as all the rest of his team.

A player these days tries to take half of his team's shot attempts, his head coach takes him out of the game, and chews his arse out. The LSU players NOT named Pete who didn't allow Pete to take half of his team's attempts under Press, Press takes THEM out of the game and chews their asses off.

Press' best success as a MBB coach came in a very brief time at NC State, when he took over for Everett Case. But he always had the plan to design his team's system to evolve around his son Pete. But Pete muffed his test scores and wasn't able to enroll at NC State, and had to go to a year in prep. During that year, Press shopped his services to other colleges, because he wasn't going to have his son play for anyone else, and Pete wasn't going to NC St.

Several colleges were interested in having a talented player such as Pete come play for their program, but they still rejected Press' idea of running everything through his son, and having the other players basically end up being back-drops for him. LSU stepped in, with the low-enough admission standards, and the embrace of Press' philosophy.

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SEC Storied March 12 Pistol Pete on SEC Network

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Best basketball player LSU's ever had: 44-6-5 3 yr career line, basically Michael Jordan pro statline only with more ppg, can't imagine he wouldn't have been a double-double player had he not shot the ball so damn much, made LSU relevant as a basketball program in the 1960s and inspired the creation and construction of the Deaf Dome RIP

They all knew it was comin' and couldn't stop it... all u need to know.

Thank you for posting this