For almost 20 years, Mike Davis has treasured a photo of his then-7-year-old son smiling alongside a baby-faced LeBron James.
The Detroit Mercy males’s basketball coach has caught himself glancing at that picture extra usually this season with each topics chasing historical past.
“I’ve been thinking, ‘Is this the all-time leading scorer in NBA history and the all-time leading scorer in college basketball history?’” Davis advised Yahoo Sports final week. “What a priceless picture that would be if that happens.”
That future got here achingly near turning into actuality, however Antoine Davis fell only a single flick of his wrist in need of making it occur. The Detroit Mercy fifth-year senior missed a hurried pull-up 3-pointer within the ultimate seconds of a 71-66 season-ending loss to Youngstown State, perpetually leaving him three factors shy of tying Pete Maravich’s NCAA profession scoring report.
Davis entered Thursday evening’s Horizon League quarterfinal 25 factors away from the three,667 that the legendary Maravich tallied at LSU from 1967-1970. It appeared like mild work for a troublesome shot specialist who averaged a national-best 28.4 factors this season and had exceeded 30 in eight of his earlier 9 video games.
The calculus modified when Youngstown State unveiled a defensive scheme designed to make anybody moreover Davis must attempt to generate offense. The top-seeded Penguins despatched a double staff on the high-scoring 6-foot-1 combo guard anytime he attacked off the dribble, anytime he noticed daylight in transition, anytime he curled round a display screen for a catch-and-shoot alternative. Sometimes Davis confronted a lure as quickly as he crossed mid-court.
In response, Davis struck a steadiness between searching his personal shot and searching for to arrange his teammates. He had seven factors at halftime, 15 early within the second half and 22 by the ultimate buzzer Only down the stretch did he turn out to be ultra-aggressive, hoisting eight of his 26 photographs with the result of the sport hanging within the steadiness in the course of the ultimate four-plus minutes.
To some, it was a reduction that Davis didn’t declare a hallowed report that had stood unthreatened for greater than half a century. They argued that Davis could not be school basketball’s rightful scoring king, that his feat would have include a super-sized asterisk. After all, Davis wanted 144 video games to method what Maravich did in 83.
Maravich performed at LSU in an period when freshmen weren’t but varsity-eligible. For three years, he averaged an unfathomable, virtually mythic 44.2 factors per recreation regardless of not having the advantage of a shot clock or 3-point line. Because of guidelines modifications prompted by COVID-19 disruptions, Davis acquired an NCAA waiver permitting him to play 5 full seasons at Detroit Mercy. He tallied 25.4 factors per recreation for a struggling Titans program that has posted dropping information in all however one among his 5 seasons.
The different think about play was Maravich’s mystique. Pistol Pete grew to become a basketball people hero throughout his profession, a participant whose mop-top haircut and floppy socks had been of his period however whose crowd-pleasing recreation was forward of his time. LSU’s freshman staff constantly outdrew its varsity throughout Maravich’s first yr on campus. Fans in basketball-apathetic SEC cities flocked to see his array of behind-the-back dribbles, no-look assists and next-zip-code leap photographs.
Davis, then again, has shined in anonymity at an off-the-radar program. Detroit Mercy’s 8,000-seat enviornment was lower than 1 / 4 full on Tuesday evening when Davis scored 38 factors to increase his staff’s season and hold his pursuit of Maravich alive. The 6-foot-1 combo guard’s quest to interrupt the report on Thursday evening streamed on ESPN+.
Even Mike Davis mentioned final week that if his son surpassed Maravich, they each must be remembered as report holders.
“I feel like Antoine is the best scorer of this generation and Pistol Pete is the best scorer from his generation,” Mike mentioned.
