Detroit Mercy’s Davis NCAA D-I’s No. 2 scorer
Detroit Mercy star Antoine Davis moved into second place on the NCAA’s all-time scoring list during Saturday’s game against IUPUI….
And then there was one.
With 5:33 to play in the first half of his team’s matchup against IUPUI on Saturday, Detroit Mercy star Antoine Davis passed former Portland State standout Freeman Williams to become the No. 2 scorer all time in Division I men’s college basketball history with his 3,250th point and 18th of the game.
Davis finished with a game-high 42 points in the Titans’ 89-77 win over IUPUI and now sits at 3,274 points.
He’ll now make a run at “Pistol” Pete Maravich, who holds the D-I record with 3,667 points in his three years at LSU.
Davis, who plays for his father Mike Davis’ squad, entered the transfer portal last season and considered a move to another school. Multiple major programs were on his list, including BYU and Maryland, but the veteran said he came back to Detroit Mercy to help the school make a run to the NCAA tournament for the first time in more than a decade.
Davis has never played in the NCAA tournament and he said he would trade any record for an appearance.
But now, he’ll be the focus on a pursuit that once seemed impossible.
Maravich averaged 44.2 points per game for three years at LSU in the late 1960s. He did it without a 3-point line.
Davis has been chasing Maravich in a career that started with the 2018-19 season. He has played in 131 games, compared to Maravich’s 83. But Maravich also averaged 38.1 field goal attempts per game in his career compared to Davis’ 20.5.
After climbing to No. 2 on Saturday, Davis would still need a miraculous finish to approach Maravich’s mark.
To achieve the feat in the regular season, Davis would have to average more than 38 points to score almost 400 points and pass Maravich. Even with a postseason run in the Horizon League tournament and an appearance in the NCAA tournament, Davis would need a heroic effort to pull it off.
He seemed to acknowledge as much when he set the NCAA’s career record for 3-pointers made in last week’s 87-75 win over Robert Morris.
“That’s a hard record to break,” he said, “even for me.”