Dan Issel: How Kentucky's All-Time Leading Scorer Built a Record That Has Lasted 56 Years

Kentucky has sent more players to the NBA than almost anyone, and over the last two decades it has turned top recruits into lottery picks. Still, the top of the program's career scoring list hasn't changed since 1970. It belongs to Dan Issel, a center from Batavia, Illinois, with 2,138 points in three varsity seasons. More than half a century later, no Wildcat has caught him.

**The kid from Batavia**
Issel didn't start for his high school team until his junior year. By the time he graduated from Batavia High School in 1966, he was an All-American who averaged 25.8 points as a senior on a 26-3 team. His coach, Don VanDersnick, is credited with teaching him to dunk by having him grab the rim 50 times every day at practice. Northwestern, Illinois and Wisconsin all recruited him. He chose Kentucky and Adolph Rupp.

**The numbers**
From 1966 to 1970 Issel scored 2,138 points, a school-record 25.7 per game, and pulled down 1,078 rebounds. He was a two-time All-American, led Kentucky to three SEC titles and set 23 school records. As a senior he averaged 33.9 points, and 36.0 in the NCAA tournament, as Kentucky reached the Elite Eight.

His best scoring night came on Feb. 7, 1970, against Ole Miss: 53 points in a 120-85 win. That broke Cliff Hagan's single-game school record of 51, and Issel's mark stood for almost four decades until Jodie Meeks scored 54 at Tennessee on Jan. 13, 2009. Two weeks after the Ole Miss game, Issel scored 51 at LSU, which still ranks among the best single-game totals in school history.

**Why the record has lasted**
Context makes Issel's total even more impressive. Freshmen weren't eligible for varsity play in his era, so he scored all 2,138 points in three seasons. The college game also had no three-point line or shot clock yet. Today's Kentucky stars rarely stay more than a season or two before turning pro, and that's the real reason the record looks safe. To catch Issel, a modern Wildcat would have to stay four years and score at a rate the program hasn't seen in decades.

**The Maravich years**
Issel's career overlapped with Pete Maravich's at LSU. Maravich set the NCAA scoring record with 3,667 points (44.2 per game). He and Issel finished first and second in SEC Player of the Year voting in each of their three varsity seasons. Issel lost the individual award to a once-in-a-generation scorer, but he won the league titles.

**A Rupp prophecy**
According to Sports Illustrated, early in Issel's career his teammates weren't getting him the ball. Rupp called timeout and told them, more or less, that this was going to be Kentucky's all-time leading scorer and they might want to meet him. Rupp turned out to be right.

**After Lexington**
Issel stayed in Kentucky as a pro, signing with the ABA's Kentucky Colonels rather than the Detroit Pistons, who had drafted him in the eighth round. He led the ABA in scoring as a rookie at 29.9 points per game and shared Rookie of the Year honors. He became a six-time ABA All-Star and a one-time NBA All-Star, and he became one of the top scorers in Denver Nuggets history. When he retired in 1985, only Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius Erving had scored more professional points. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993.

**Our Take:** Kentucky fans can list the championship teams by heart, but Issel's record is a different kind of legacy. It's about consistency: three years of dominant, efficient scoring under the most demanding coach in the program's history. In the one-and-done era, 2,138 points may be the safest record at Kentucky. If someone ever threatens it, Rupp Arena will know it's watching something it may never see again.

Sources: Wikipedia, Dan Issel · Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Dan Issel · Sports-Reference College Basketball, Dan Issel