Caitlin Clark passes Pete Maravich in career points, becoming NCAA’s top all-time scorer

Caitlin Clark now has scored more career points than the late, great LSU guard “Pistol” Pete Maravich, whose NCAA men’s scoring record has stood for 54 seasons.

Until Sunday, no NCAA Division I basketball player — on either the men’s side or the women’s — had ever eclipsed 3,667 points, the hallowed mark that Maravich set in 1970 at the end of his three-season collegiate career. 

The shot that finally caught him was a free throw. When Clark sank it at the end of the second quarter of the No. 6 Hawkeyes’ game against No. 2 Ohio State, she officially outscored Maravich, the Hall of Famer who many fans and observers compare her to.

Maravich starred at LSU in the days before the NCAA had instituted the shot clock, installed the 3-point line or even allowed freshman to compete at the varsity level. He set the men’s record after averaging 44.2 points across the 83 games he played from 1967-1970. 

Jaeson Maravich, in a February interview with The Advocate, commended Clark’s pursuit of the record, but struck a pair of distinctions, one between his late father’s two records — the scoring average and the total points — and another between the men’s game and the women’s game. 

Clark, who has played 47 more games than Maravich, entered her senior season 810 points shy of the NCAA Division I women’s scoring record and 950 short of Maravich’s total points mark. 

She’s spent most of her senior season chasing those titles — one audacious, dazzling bucket at a time. 

On Feb. 15, Clark took the NCAA women’s record, held by ex-Washington guard Kelsey Plum, with a deep transition pull-up 3-pointer that she swished in the first quarter of an Iowa win over Michigan. 

In that game, Clark either scored or assisted on 79 points, more than any Division I player has accounted for in a single game over the last 25 seasons, per ESPN Stats & Information.

Then, she took aim at Lynette Woodard’s AIAW large-school record of 3,649 points. Woodard played at Kansas from 1975-79, before the NCAA sanctioned women’s basketball. 

Clark passed her Wednesday night with a side-step 3-pointer from the right wing. Iowa defeated Minnesota 108-60 on the road, and Clark netted eight 3s, bringing her season total to 156, also a new NCAA record. 

“I’m just really thankful and grateful to have those players who have come before me,” Clark said. “Yeah, it’s super special. Obviously, (Woodard’s) one of the best all-time. It just still shows the room that we have to improve, and where women’s sports is going is a really great place.”

Entering Sunday’s game, Clark had tallied 1,049 career assists, the most in Big Ten history and the fifth-most in NCAA Division I women’s history. She also needed 35 triples to take the Division I record for most career 3-point makes. 

On Thursday, she announced her intentions to forgo her extra season of collegiate eligibility and declare for the WNBA Draft. The Indiana Fever are expected to take Clark with the No. 1 overall pick. 

She’ll enter the league as one of the most accomplished college basketball players of all time, the only one who’s ever earned the distinction of a higher career point total than Maravich.