Caitlin vs. Pistol Pete: No Contest.

Because, you know, it's not a contest

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Iowa’s Caitlin Clark is 18 points away from becoming the leading scorer in NCAA basketball history, men’s or women’s, period. This is a statistical fact, using actual statistics available to any of us troglodytes with an internet connection and opposable thumbs.

It’s cool because it is real, and because it’ll happen pretty much in front of us. Sixth-ranked Iowa hosts No. 2 Ohio State on Sunday in a nationally televised game (FOX). Clark is averaging more than 32 points a game, so even against a really good Buckeyes defense, you have to like her chances of getting it done this weekend.

But it will get done, Sunday or next week, one way or another. And because this is a unifying record, the fact of Clark’s impending achievement rankles those who are quite sure — quite sure — that she doesn’t belong in the same conversation as Pete Maravich, the current record-holder.

They’re right: she doesn’t.

But perhaps not for the reasons they’re imagining.

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Here’s the thing about statistics: They just lie and lie. They lie all the damn time. They stretch ostensible truths to the snapping point. They’re full of it.

Wait. I expressed that incorrectly. It’s people. My bad.

People lie. People use statistics to weave vast untruths. Or, if we’re going to be less operatic about it, folks generally employ numbers to try to support whatever argument they’d really like to win. Sometimes the numbers are legit, sometimes they’re a joke, but usually they’re in there.

I’ll give you a couple of numbers to save us all some time: 1970 and 2024. The first is the year when Pete Maravich stopped playing college basketball, and the second is where most of us are today.

Comparing athletic achievements more than half a century apart is going to be, ah….problematic. Not that that ever stops us, but let’s at least be honest about our buffoonery. So in 1970 Pete Maravich left college with 3,667 points scored. Here in good old 2024, Caitlin Clark is sitting on 3,650. So what’s the problem?

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Well, Maravich loyalists are quick to point out, Pete scored his points in three seasons, not four, because 1970 is such an ancient time that back then freshmen weren’t even allowed to play NCAA varsity ball. (Now they often only play their freshman year.) Clark, meanwhile, is in her fourth year at Iowa.

Also — and duly noted! — Pistol Pete averaged 44.2 points per game, which is absurd and which Clark has never approached. Her highest average is 32.2, which she’s doing this season as a senior.

Maravich also achieved his monumental numbers without the benefit of a three-point shot, since, again, there was not a three-point line back in the dark ages. There also wasn’t a shot clock, meaning opponents could try to slow Pete down by holding the ball forever when they were on offense.

That’s all established fact. It was a different time. Different, of course, doesn’t mean better; it means different. Pistol Pete was a wild man in a placid time of hoops. He was a massive disruptor. Just like the woman who’s about to pass him.

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In many ways, though, these comparisons aren’t only useless, they actually have the capacity (when used badly) to diminish everybody being compared.

Here, I’ll show you.

—Pete Maravich may not have had a three-point line, but he sure made up for it in shot volume. He took 38 shots a game. That’s almost twice what Caitlin Clark averages.

—Despite bombing from way, way behind the three-point line, Clark actually has a higher field-goal percentage for her career than Maravich had in any single season.

—Pete was the best player in a mediocre LSU program. Playing for his dad, Press Maravich, Pete’s teams went 14-12, 13-13 and 22-10 (ranked 15th). Caitlin Clark’s Iowa teams have gone 100-29 and constantly been in the top 10 for the past three seasons. She played in the NCAA championship last year.

—LSU’s strength of schedule during Pete’s three years, a measure of peer-vs.-peer competition: 2.71, just a couple of ticks above average. Iowa’s SOS during Clark’s four years: 15.97 above average.

So yes, she doesn’t belong in the same conversation as Maravich.

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But why would I run down Pistol Pete? I love the guy. He helped people reimagine what basketball could even look like. He was like an alien being out there. And he took his stuff on to the NBA and re-created the game there, too.

There’s nothing about Maravich’s legacy that should be insecure. He’s fixed. He’s in there. And that is exactly where Caitlin Clark is going right now. She has caused legions of young players to get fired up about the game — girls and boys, men and women. She crosses quite a few demographics.

One reason, I think, is that Clark is such a gym rat. You can just tell, watching her play, how much she loves the game. She’s playing on really good teams, against really good competition, and she is excelling. That inspires a lot of people any time it happens.

Points are numbers. Numbers make stats. Stats get used — well, we’ve been over that already. My advice: Just watch Caitlin Clark play. It’s basketball the way you remember it, at least in spirit.