Saturday, March 24, 2007

Pete Maravich

Here's a very cool highlight video of Pete Maravich's college basketball career.

There's an impressive sequence of passes starting at 1:52. Notice that at 2:10, he passes the ball to someone who was several feet behind him on a fast break. At 2:17-2:19, he does his patented pass where his arms fling out to the left but, because he flicks his wrists, the ball actually goes to the right. I also liked the pass at 2:30 to 2:31. At 2:33, he tosses the ball 15 feet backwards over his head, and past several defenders. Another very cool pass at 2:40 -- he throws it backwards while his body was spinning in the opposite direction.

One of the most amazing passes is at around 4:24 to 4:28. The video isn't very high quality here, and you'll have to play it a few times just to see what happens. There was a full-court pass to Maravich, who was running at top speed down the court on a fast break. He looks up and backwards to catch the ball about 15 feet out on the right baseline. But only for a split second -- almost too quick to see, he whips the ball backwards over his shoulder to a teammate who was running down the lane. He had just a preternatural sense of where his teammates were on the court.

There are also some seemingly impossible shots that remind me of Michael Jordan -- check out the shot at 3:00-3:02, for example, or at 3:19-3:22.

And to think he averaged 44 points a game without a 3-point line. He could drain shots from way out there -- check out the shot at 3:14.

Some additional videos of Maravich are here, here, and here.

1 Comments:

Blogger PunditFight said...

Wow thats some amazing stuff... i thought i was watching an AND1 mixtape. he definitely has a flamboyant flair about him. its clear just looking at him standing around...i can almost picture the swagger, the drawl in his voice and slick dress sense. Early Jason Williams type stuff, and Mark Jackson before him.

9:59 AM  

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