Pete Maravich was the greatest scorer in college basketball history. And it’s not even close.
No question Maravich was a great scorer of the basketball, but there’s this also:
Under his father’s watch, Maravich had an extraordinarily large role in the Tigers’ offense, averaging 38.1 shots per game over his career. In his three seasons with the Tigers, he was responsible for 3,166 of his team’s 6,284 shot attempts, or 50.4%.
Season FG FGA FG% Assists Rebounds Points
1967-68 16.6 39.3 42.3% 4 7.5 43.8
1968-69 16.7 37.5 44.4% 4.9 6.5 44.2
1969-70 16.8 37.7 44.7% 6.2 5.3 44.5
So analyzing those stats he shot the ball 38 times per game, more than half his teams field goal attempts. He averaged 6.4 rebounds per game and 5 assists per game. As the primary ball handler 5 assists per game does not necessarily impress me. Dude liked to shoot the ball, but didn’t pass much to his teammates and was not a particularly good rebounder at 6.4 per game. The two stats I would be interested in knowing is how many turnovers per game did he commit and what was his assist to turnover ratio. In my mind all those categories are important in determining what a great basketball player is.