March 5, 2024
I love Caitlin Clark’s game. She
is Sabrina Ionescu, but better. She’s the female version of Steph Curry. On Sunday, she broke the all-time scoring record for a men's or women's Division I basketball player. And while I don’t mean to
rain on her parade, I am going to offer a steady drizzle.
Clark took four seasons and 130 games to score 3,668 points and break the record “Pistol” Pete Maravich set in just three seasons and 83 games. When Maravich attended LSU in the late 1960s, freshmen were not allowed on varsity, costing him a season. Further hindering his ability to possibly score 5,000 points were the facts that: 1. There was no shot clock to speed up play and 2. There was no 3-point line. Former LSU coach Dale Brown and sportswriter Sam King later studied the game tapes and concluded that Maravich would have averaged about 10 more points per game had a 3-point line existed. That’s 830 more points in what’s still going to be at least 50 fewer games. A hypothetical, sure, but still a fact at the same time.
Again, nothing against Clark. I understand the eras are different and Maravich shot a lot more, but context does matter. So please don’t try to tell me she is/was a better scorer than Pistol … because no one was.
Now, score some knowledge from these RTO Insider news stories.
From everyone at RTO Insider, thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day!
Shawn McFarland
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