Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

‘Cause he’s a cheating scumbag.

 

You mean, Maravich knocked their FLOPPY socks off.

The guy was national news and graduated to legendary — especially his 1969 game at Georgia.

He scored 58, and with LSU ahead in the final minute or so of overtime, Maravich put on a Globetrotter-worthy dribbling show to kill the clock. Georgia tried to foul him — but couldn’t touch him.

With a couple seconds left, he went full Curly Neal and flung up a hook shot from 35 feet and was walking off the court as it swished through the net. The Georgia cheerleaders lifted him on their shoulders and carried him around the court.

 

Like I said, if you're of my generation (HS class of 1972), Maravich is a basketball God. If you're 40 or below, or maybe even 50 and below, you just can't understand the impact he had and how refreshing he was in a black & white TV era of unprecedented cultural upheaval and change.

If somehow you could watch him in full-color high-def you'd get a much better appreciation of just how otherworldly he was.

BTW, UNC is 0-9 against Quad 1 teams this year and ESPN still has them in the NCAAs. What a joke.

 

If you're in my demographic, sing along.

 

To get the smallest flavor of Maravich's abilities, go find the old Red on Roundball features they used to run on NBA telecasts that had Maravich in them. Red Auerbach ought to be considered as a qualified authority on basketball ability, and he had Maravich on those shows to show off, er, teach.

 

And that really surprised me. Red was very complimentary toward Maravich.

 

Assuming Maravich was playing close to 40 MPG in college, he was probably averaging close to a shot per minute. In the pros, he was down to a shot per half-minute. Pete's still 5th all-time in FGA per game, behind Baylor, Jordan, Chamberlain and Iverson, but it's not the crazy rate he was going at in college, which made him more valuable as a player in the pros. He took more than half of LSU's shots his sophomore year, before taking slightly less than that in his junior and senior years.

To be clear, I still think he's an all-star level or All-American kind of player, but it's clear that his college stats were pretty unnatural because of who his coach was. Since he was mentioned, Chamberlain's FGA per game in college was half of Maravich's rate, in the low 20s. Iverson is at 17.4. Sports Reference only has leaderboards for FGA going back to 1985, because of the inconsistent records available before then, but the Top 5 in total FGA since then are Antoine Davis (20.6 FGA per game), Lionel Simmons (18.9), Alphono Ford (22.7), Keydren Clark (20.4) and Mark Macon (18.4). Pete is double them.

 

Met him once
He had a basketball camp at what then was Clearwater Christian College
My sports editor, a huge fan, did the interview
I just watched Pete work with the kids
Quite a show

 

The knock on Drew before they won the championship was he would recruit great players, and use sheer talent to beat most teams, but then they'd wilt against other talented teams. I think the reason he doesn't get the "leader of men" treatment is none of his players have turned into NBA stars. There's no Jordan or Grant Hill or Carmelo to burnish the legend. Drew has... Taurean Prince?

 

New Mexico State cancels the rest of its season.

But. . . it isn't over the incident where the player shot and killed a guy. . . it was over a different thing. (that is reassuring).

New Mexico State men's basketball won't resume season (espn.com)

 

He gone.
NMSU fires coach Heiar in wake of hazing claims

Helped cover up a murder investigation.
Oversaw a season long hazing/sexual assault locker room.

Quite a one year resume