Today in History—March 2: Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point record game

On this day in 1962 American basketball player Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a single NBA game—an incredible record that has never been beaten.

When he made his final basket with 46 seconds left to play, the ecstatic crowd stormed the floor. A radio announcer screamed, “He made it! He made it!…The most amazing scoring performance of all time! One hundred points for the Big Dipper!”

Chamberlain’s feat came in a contest pitting his team, the Philadelphia Warriors (later the Golden State Warriors), against the New York Knicks. He scored 41 points in the first half and had reached 69 by the end of the third quarter. He soon blew past his own single-game record of 78 points (set several months before) and ended with the gloriously round figure of 100 points. The Warriors went home with the victory, winning 169–147.

What is even more incredible is that Chamberlain amassed 100 points at a time when three-pointers didn’t exist: The NBA wouldn’t introduce that valuable shot until the 1979–80 season. Instead, he made 36 of 63 (57.1 percent) two-point shots and hit 28 out of 32 (87.5 percent) free throws.

The legendary game, held in a small arena in Hershey, Pennsylvania, was not televised, so only the 4,124 fans in attendance had the privilege of seeing Chamberlain make history. Though no video footage exists, a college student happened to tape a local radio broadcast of the game’s fourth quarter. That tape survived, and in 2016 it was added to the U.S. National Recording Registry.

Chamberlain, who stood more than 7 feet (2.1 meters) tall, set numerous other records during his storied NBA career. During the 1961–62 season he became the first player to score more than 4,000 points in an NBA season, with 4,029—which averages to an astounding 50.4 points per game. To this day, Chamberlain owns the top four single-season scoring averages in league history. He finished his career with a scoring average of 30.07 points per game, which has been surpassed only by His Airness, Michael Jordan, who amassed 30.12 points per game.