Notice how I say "overlooked." I didn't say that Bird was the best college basketball player of all time. In fact, I'm a Bruins' fan and think that Lew Alcindor was the greatest college basketball player of all time.
By overlooked I mean Bird was often not in the top five list of college basketball players of all time, in which he should be included. He was indeed a great college basketball player, and the fact that he could led his team, Sycamore, with bunch of nobodies, went undefeated, and made the finals in the 1979, is enough to convince me that he's a top five college basketball players of all time, not 10, eight, or seven, but top five!
Since the top three are pretty much reserved for Lew Alcindor, Bill Walton, and Bill Russell, we don't need to argue with that.
But what I have the problem is the No. 5 spot, Oscar Robertson rightfully deserved the No. 4 spot but not Pete Maravich! Before you say I'm crazy, I'll give you some fact.
How many of these college players could average 44 ppg if they shot 1,053 times per year like "Pistol"?
Rick Barry - Maimi - 29.8 - HOF
Elgin Baylor - Seattle - 31.8 - HOF
Larry Bird - Indiana State - 30.3 - HOF
Bill Bradley Princeton - 30.2 - HOF
Austin Carr - Notre Dame - 34.6
Elvin Hayes - Houston - 31.0 - HOF
Rick Mount - Purdue - 32.3
Calvin Murrphy - Houston - 33.1 - HOF
Oscar Robertson - Cincinnati - 33.8 - HOF
Pistol's daddy was his coach, and he had the green light to shoot any time he wanted to.
Here is the formula that I came up with:
1053 fga per year X 3 years = 3159 total fga
3159 fga X each players fg% = fg made
fg made X 2pts each = total fg points
total fg points + free throws made = total points scored
total points scored divided gamed played = ppg
For example..Larry Bird
3159 X 53% = 1674 fg
1674 X 2pts= 3348 points
3348 + 542 ft points = 3890 total points
3890 divided by 94 games played = 41.4 ppg
This is going off of their college career stats, and assuming that their free throws wouldn't go up. Here's a couple others:
Rick Barry: 51.3 ppg
Oscar Robertson: 47.9 ppg
Calvin Murphy: 44.6 ppg
Elgin Baylor: 46.8 ppg
I used this formula for Pistol and it worked out to 44.2 ppg, so it should be somewhat accurate.
Not to mention Bird was by far a better defender, rebounder, and team player. Bird also shot higher FG% than Pistol Pete. And Pete NEVER made the NCAA tournament either, so it's safe to say that he played for stats.
For those of you who said that he played only three years in college, so what? Bird only played three years either in college. And if you say Pete would've scored even more had three points line exist, then Bird would've scored more, too, because during Bird's college career, three points line wasn't there yet either.
During the '60s-'70s, you had to win your conference to make the tournament. So how can Pete Maravich be the best in the country when he wasn't even the best in his conference?
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