Since it was just Pete’s Freshman season, he could not play with the Varsity team at LSU. You see back in those days freshman were not allowed to play with the Varsity team, so the group was split into two teams, Freshman and Varsity. So when the time came for Pete’s first game nearly all of Louisiana showed up to see what all the hype and talk was about. Also as a quick note, the freshman team would play ahead of the Varsity team in terms of schedule. So as Pete came on to the floor and scorched Southeastern Louisiana College for 15 points,14 rebounds and 11 assist the crowd just walked up and left in awe as the varsity team took the floor with only a handful of people still remaining. This was what Pete was bringing with him to LSU, and he proved why he belonged there. This type of night continued for the rest of the season as Pete led his freshman squad to a 17-1 record, but on the other side of things the Varsity squad struggled and went 3-23. However, Press and the rest of the team knew that next season would be a lot better. Oh yeah, it would be a hell of a lot better.

The next 3 seasons came nothing but improvement for the program as Pete lead them offensively. as the Tigers went 14-12 ,13-13 and 22-10. Press told Pete to keep shooting no matter what. “If your open, shoot,; if you’re guarded, create space and then shoot.” Pete had amazing passing ability, but Press thought that passing would affect the game too much and cause losses, so when asked about this Press responded with “We win with Pete; if he gets special treatment, it's because he is so special.” It was obvious that this was Pete’s team and he proved why he was the best every night he played. In his first season of Varsity basketball at LSU Pete put up 1,138 points, the next season, 1,148 and his senior season of 1970 he put up 1,381 points. Averages of 43.8, 44.2 and 44.5 points per game which accumulated to 3,667 points and an average of 44.2 points per game during 83 NCAA games. Pete shattered almost every SEC and LSU record during his amazing career at LSU and this was even before the 3-point line was even put into place. After years of studying Pete’s games it is said that Pete made an average of 13 shots a game from what is now the three-point line. You can get a sense of what it would have been like if the point scoring was what it is now. Also if the three-point line had existed when he played, he would have averaged 57 points a game during his whole career at LSU. He holds records of scoring more than 50 points 28 times, which still stands today. If you count the points he made his freshman year Pete would have more than 4,000 points under his belt.

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