who is the leading scorer in ncaa basketball
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball career scoring leaders Additionally, several of the players on this list played during an era when college freshmen were ineligible to compete at the varsity level and were forced to participate on either freshman or junior varsity teams. Since freshman and junior varsity points do not count toward official NCAA records, three players—Pete Maravich, Oscar Robertson and Elvin Hayes—only had three seasons to compile their totals. Larry Bird redshirted (sat out) his freshman year, and therefore, like Maravich, Robertson, and Hayes, his totals also cover only three seasons. With the added benefits of a three-point line and a full extra year of varsity eligibility, their already-historical statistics would have been much higher. Maravich, a guard from LSU, not only owns the three highest single season averages in Division I history, but also the highest career total. Remarkably, he scored 3,667 points (over 400 more than the next closest player) in a mere 83 games. His record is generally considered unbreakable; the only player who could have potentially overtaken him as the top scorer in Division I history is Stephen Curry of Davidson, who had scored 2,635 points through his first three seasons of college basketball. However, Curry opted to forgo his final year of NCAA eligibility and moved on to the National Basketball Association (NBA) following his junior season in 2008–09.
Michael Jordan As a freshman in coach Dean Smith's team-oriented system, he was named ACC Freshman of the Year after he averaged 13.4 points per game (ppg) on 53.4% shooting (field goal percentage).[18] He made the game-winning jump shot in the 1982 NCAA Championship game against Georgetown, which was led by future NBA rival Patrick Ewing.[4] Jordan later described this shot as the major turning point in his basketball career.[19] During his three seasons at North Carolina, he averaged 17.7 ppg on 54.0% shooting, and added 5.0 rebounds per game (rpg).[12] He was selected by consensus to the NCAA All-American First Team in both his sophomore (1983) and junior (1984) seasons. After winning the Naismith and the Wooden College Player of the Year awards in 1984, Jordan left North Carolina one year before his scheduled graduation to enter the 1984 NBA draft. The Chicago Bulls selected Jordan with the third overall pick, after Hakeem Olajuwon (Houston Rockets) and Sam Bowie (Portland Trail Blazers). One of the primary reasons why Jordan was not drafted sooner was because the first two teams were in need of a center.[20] However, Trail Blazers general manager Stu Inman contended that it was not a matter of drafting a center, but more a matter of taking Sam Bowie over Jordan, in part because Portland already had Clyde Drexler, who was a guard with similar skills to Jordan.[21] ESPN, citing Bowie's injury-laden college career, named the Blazers' choice of Bowie as the worst draft pick in North American professional sports history.[22] Jordan returned to North Carolina to complete his degree in 1986.[23] He graduated the same year with a Bachelor of Arts degree in geography.[24]