The whole of America watched an NCAA match in the hope that the record held by the first Serb who captivated America with basketball would fall for five decades. He did not fall, Pete Maravich stayed where he belongs – written in golden letters in history.
Jangstown has overcome Detroit Sea 71:66 in the NCAA, and since he is the playmaker of the losing team Antoine Davis finished the match with 22 points, that meant that in the end the record set by a Serb more than 50 years ago still stands! What is it?
Antoine Davis finished his NCAA career with 3,664 points, while the most points in an NCAA career in history was scored by an American-born Serbian Pit Maravič! The man who will become an NBA legend after his NCAA career scored 3,667 points, so Davis remained “short” by only three points!
However, the difference in class when it comes to these two basketball players is huge. Pete Maravich managed to score 3,667 points in just three seasons at LSU from 1967 to 1970. He averaged 44.2 points in 83 NCAA career games, a record that will never fall. Louisiana State, of course, retired his number 23. As for Davis, he scored his 3,664 points in as many as five seasons. He played for Detroit Mercy from 2018 until 2023 and the match with Youngstown was his last before the start of his professional basketball career. In 144 matches, he gave 25.4 points per match.
Pit Maravič was born in Pennsylvania in 1947, and his father was Petar Maravič, whose parents came to America from Drežnica near Ogulin. The legendary also kept extremely close to its origin Rudi Tomjanovic told in his interviews how Pit proudly pointed out that he was a Serb. He managed to transfer his form from the NCAA to the NBA league, so he became a legend there as well, and in some states of the USA he is still the most popular athlete ever!
He played for Atlanta, then for the New Orleans Jazz, who during his career moved to Utah and the last season for Boston, Atlanta retired his jersey number 44, and New Orleans and Utah retired his “week”. During his NBA career, he was elected to the All Star five times, and in 1971 he was the league’s best scorer with an average of 24.2 points per game. The match from February 25, 1977 is also remembered when New York scored 68 points on the Knicks, before the introduction of the three-point line!
He was one of the youngest to be inducted into the “Hall of Fame”, and the reason for that was tragic. Maravič died at the age of 40 with a basketball in his hands. While playing basketball with his friends on January 5, 1988, he died because his heart stopped, and only an autopsy determined that he had an untreated heart disease. A street in Belgrade on Palilula is now named after him, and several NCAA records he holds will apparently never be broken.