From the Archives: Celebrating Selvy – February 13, 1954

February 13th, 1954 will always be remembered as an amazing night for Furman sports history.  On that date, Paladin Senior, Frank Selvy, scored a record-breaking 100 points in a basketball game against Newberry College.  Even before the opening tip, the game was notable – the first live television broadcast of a college basketball game in South Carolina.

By the end of the third quarter, Selvy had scored 63 points.  According to the Greenville News, as the excitement grew, people who had been listening to the game on the radio turned off their radios and headed to the gym, spilling onto the baseline and hanging over the rafters.  In the fourth quarter, as Selvy got closer to scoring 100 points, the public address announcer began screaming Selvy’s total.  With 30 seconds left in the game, Selvy’s had scored 94 points.  Then a quick basket . . . “96 points!”  The crowd went wild when this was followed by a turnaround jumper from the baseline . . . “98 points!”  Newberry missed their next shot and the ball returned to Selvy.  He launched a high-arching shot from near midcourt at the buzzer.  Swish!  100 points scored in a single game.  And in case that’s not exciting enough, Furman won the game 149-95.

Leading the nation in scoring from 1953-1954, Frank Selvy averaged 41.7 points a game.  Keep in mind, this was well before the introduction of the three-point line.  After graduation, he was drafted first overall by the Baltimore Bullets in the 1954 NBA Draft.  He played nine seasons in the NBA and is best known for his time with the Los Angeles Lakers.

See these and other digitized images from Special Collections and Archives at Old Main Campus Photos 1851-1958.