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| Wilt Chamberlain was a dominant force for Kansas during his college career. (sportsillustrated.cnn.com) |
It's easy to forget. After all, Wilt Chamberlain was playing college basketball nearly 60 years ago and ended his professional career 40 years ago.
It's easy to forget just how great Chamberlain was, and thanks to the YouTube user "Wilt Chamberlain Archive", and our knowledge of it coming from the Kansas City Star, video of Chamberlain's final five collegiate games at Kansas has been edited into nearly 20 minutes of footage. The video was published a week ago and is already over 131,000 views.
You can watch the video here, which not only proves what a prolific scorer Chamberlain was, he was a man among boys, but he really did have a great all-around game. Within the first two minutes it is obvious Chamberlain could score from not just around the basket, but he has a nice looking jump shot, could shoot in traffic, and wasn't to shabby at the free-throw line for a big man either (take notes, Dwight).
But you probably knew he could score. You don't score 100 points in a game if you can't in a variety of ways. Rebounding was also an easy forte to guess (he averaged 18.9 per game this 1956-57 season to go along with 29.6 points per game). If his 7'1" frame didn't make it easy enough, Chamberlain could bounce off the floor to ensure no one was grabbing the ball from him. Blocking shots was a specialty as well. What's even more impressive about this footage is Chamberlain's speed (watch him outrun everyone down the floor at the :56 mark) and his passing ability as he finds open shooters (the no-look pass under the basket to a trailing teammate at 12:30 is a thing of beauty).
It may have been 40 years ago since Chamberlain last took the floor, but this footage proves why many feel he was one of the best to ever play the game.
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