Photo: Icon Sportswire
Former LSU basketball player Josh Maravich, the son of the program's all-time leading scorer and Basketball Hall of Famer 'Pistol' Pete Maravich, has died at the age of 42, the school announced Saturday (June 8) night.
"LSU Basketball extends its sincere condolences to the family and friends of Josh Maravich," the LSU men's basketball team wrote in a post shared on its X account.
Josh followed in the footsteps of his legendary father, who played at LSU from 1967 to 1970 prior to a Hall of Fame 10-year NBA career, as a walk-on in 2001.
“I wanted to come here for my dad to make him proud,” Josh said in a 2005 article in the LSU school paper, the Daily Reveille, according to the official LSU Sports website. “I knew I wasn’t going to be a star player, but for me being a walk-on was what I always wanted to do.”
The younger Maravich was a decorated high school prospect at St. Paul's in Covington, Louisiana, recording more than 1,000 points in three seasons and being named as the MVP of the District, averaging 18 points, four rebounds, four assists and three steals per game, as a senior.
Pete Maravich recorded an LSU-best 3,667 career total points, which has stood as the NCAA Division I men's basketball all-time scoring record since 1970 and was recently broken for both men's and women's basketball by former Iowa guard Caitlin Clark in March. Maravich, who died at the age of 40 in 1988, was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1987, the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006 and named to the NBA's 50th and 75th Anniversary teams.