Earlier this season, the son of Pete Maravich gave his opinion on Iowa women’s basketball player Caitlin Clark potentially passing the LSU icon on the all-time NCAA scoring leaderboard

Caitlin Clark can surpass Kelsey Plum’s NCAA women’s basketball career scoring record on Thursday against Michigan. But that won’t be the end of her pursuit of history; she will also set her sights on Pete Maravich’s 3,667 career points.

Maravich – widely known as “Pistol Pete” – has held the mark across men’s and women’s basketball since 1969-70. It’s one of the most famous records in college sports. Clark is now within 200 points of him with five regular-season games to go, and she’ll also have postseason play to add to her numbers. At her current pace, the 22-year-old will move ahead of Maravich by the end of the 2023-24 campaign.

The family of Maravich, the late LSU legend who died at 40, has responded to Clark’s chase of his all-time mark that he incredibly achieved in just three seasons.

“I look at my dad’s record, and if somebody breaks it, it’s almost like two totally different records,” said Maravich’s son, Jaeson Maravich, to The Advocate. “Just because of the circumstances and the rules and everything else. I think they had said if he had played four years, he would have had close to 5,000.

“So, I said this last year: It’s kind of like an apple-to-orange comparison. And then if you’re talking about the women’s record, I mean, to me, that’d be two totally separate records.”

Jaeson Maravich added that he doesn’t mean his perspective as a slight of Clark. He has enjoyed seeing the Iowa basketball player change the game with her 3-point shooting talents.

Pete Maravich had a legendary college basketball career with LSU before going pro. ( 
Image:
Getty Images)
“I got a chance to see her play for the first time last year, and she’s incredible,” Jaeson Maravich said. “She’s great for the sport, for women’s basketball, and I think she’s going to be a great pro. She’s very fun to watch, and I love the way she plays. So, I’m not surprised that she’s on the verge of breaking the all-time scoring record for women.”

He added: “If she ends up breaking my dad’s record, kudos to her. But I always look at it as two totally different records just because there were so many disadvantages as far as what my dad dealt with as opposed to today.”

Clark is scoring 32.1 points per game this season, helping Iowa to a 22-3 record. This past weekend, she had a chance to take sole ownership of Plum’s NCAA women’s basketball record but went scoreless in the fourth quarter of a surprising upset loss at Nebraska.

In addition to Plum and Maravich, Clark will also target the feat of former Kansas star Lynette Woodard, who scored 3,649 points before the NCAA recognized women’s basketball. She could theoretically take down Maravich and Woodard in the same game this season.