Frank Selvy, 91, Dies; Scored 100 Points in a College Basketball Game

All eyes were on Frank Selvy when his basketball team from Furman University took on a fellow South Carolina school, Newberry College, on Feb. 13, 1954.

Selvy, a 6-foot-3 guard, was the top scorer in college basketball for a second season, and his family and neighbors made the 250-mile journey from Kentucky to watch him play, joining 4,000 others in the stands in Greenville, S.C., home of Furman’s Paladins, for “Frank Selvy Night.” It would be the first college basketball game televised live in South Carolina.

A mismatch loomed. Furman was a Division I team, while Newberry, a small college about 65 miles southeast of Greenville, was Division II, so Furman’s coach figured it was a perfect time to showcase Selvy’s jump shots and hooks. He instructed the team to set Selvy up for a shot whenever it had the ball.

Selvy, who was nearing the end of his college career, did not disappoint. He scored a remarkable 100 points against Newberry, setting a single-game record for a Division I player.

He died on Tuesday at his home in Simpsonville, S.C., in Greenville County, in the northwest part of the state, according to an announcement by Furman. He was 91.

Selvy was an All-American in college and became a two-time All-Star guard in the National Basketball Association, but he was probably remembered most for that winter night in 1954. In an era before the 3-point shot, Selvy scored 41 field goals on 66 shots together with 18 free throws.

In the last 30 seconds, he scored two baskets and then tossed in a 40-footer to beat the buzzer and reach the century mark. Furman routed Newberry, 145-95, and the fans hoisted Selvy on their shoulders.

“I guess we could have held the ball, but it was his night,” the Newberry coach, Red Burnette, was quoted as saying by The Greenville News. “We got down and shot as fast as we could and they let us. No one was guarding us much.”

Forty-one years later, Selvy told Sports Illustrated: “I made at least eight or nine baskets that would have been 3-pointers today. The 100-point game, people remember that, and they don’t remember anything else.”

Franklin Delano Selvy was born on Nov. 9, 1932, in Corbin, Ky., one of 10 children of John Robert Selvy, a coal miner, and his wife, Iva. He was named for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had been elected to his first term as president the day before the boy’s birth.

Selvy was a star basketball player in high school and hoped to play for the University of Kentucky, but it didn’t offer him a scholarship. Furman did.

In his junior season, Selvy averaged 29.5 points a game, and as a senior he scored 1,209 points, becoming the first Division I player to exceed the 1,000-point mark, while averaging 41.7 points in 29 games. His season scoring average remained a major college basketball record until Pete Maravich averaged 43.8 points per game for Louisiana State in 1967-68.

The Baltimore Bullets selected Selvy as the first overall pick in the 1954 N.B.A. draft. When the team folded a few weeks after the season opened, Selvy was selected by the Milwaukee Hawks (now the Atlanta Hawks) in the league’s dispersal draft. He averaged 19 points that season and played in the league’s All-Star Game.

Selvy was drafted into the Army during the 1955-56 season, when the Hawks had moved to St. Louis, and missed all or part of three N.B.A. seasons. He also played for the Minneapolis Lakers, the New York Knicks, the Syracuse Nationals and Minneapolis again, then spent his last four N.B.A. seasons with the Lakers in Los Angeles.

He played in his second All-Star Game in 1962, when he averaged 14.7 points, his best shooting season apart from his rookie year. But that season ended on a sour note for the Lakers and especially for Selvy.

The Lakers were tied with the Boston Celtics, 100-100, at Boston Garden with five seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of the decisive Game 7 of the N.B.A. championship series. Selvy inbounded the ball to guard Rod Hundley, who dribbled briefly, then sent a pass back to Selvy, who was alone in the left corner. He hoisted a shot that could have given the Lakers their first championship since moving to Los Angeles two years earlier, but it hit the rim.

The Celtics’ Bill Russell got the rebound and Boston went on to win, 110-107, in overtime.

Selvy retired after the 1963-64 season, having averaged 10.8 points per game for his N.B.A. career. He was the head basketball coach at Furman for four seasons (1966-70), posting a record of 44-59, and later worked as a paper products salesman for the St. Joe Company in South Carolina.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara Selvy; a daughter, Valerie S. Miros; a son, Mike; a brother, Marvin; 11 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

Years later, even though Selvy was celebrated for his 100-point game in college, the loss with the Lakers still stung.

“We were four points behind and I made two baskets in 20 seconds to tie the game,” he recalled in an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2010. “I never hear about that. I’m very proud of those shots, and if I had made the last one, that really would have been something.”