3pt shooting is mostly about volume or lack thereof...
The best 3pt shooting teams in the country right now are:
- Western Kentucky at 46%
- Utah ST at 44%
- Xavier at 43%
- UVA at 42%
There’s only 2 teams in the top 40 in 3pt attempts that are shooting 40%, Penn ST & Chattanooga, everybody else that averages 25+ 3’s per game is in the 30% percentile range. Basically, the teams who are shooting a lot of 3’s aren’t really making a lot of them.
Our 3pt shooting hasn’t been good, but it’s pretty much on par with most other teams around the country, it could definitely be better, but that’s not really our style of ball & if we were a Long distance from 3 type of shooting team we’d probably be in a lot more trouble in most games we play.
The strength of this team is midrange & inside scoring, because we have multiple players who can create their own shot off the dribble driving to the basket. Even Omier does a good job getting to the rim from 15ft out, he doesn’t always finish lol but he makes a good ball fake drive every game to get a chance at a bucket while driving.
IMO this is actually a great thing for us, because as we’ve seen in the UCF & Rutgers games, that even when we get down by a deficit that we’re a team that doesn’t panic & start jacking up bad shots, they stay within themselves, keep composure & just keep playing their game. Defensive intensity picks up & then we start going on a run; a few buckets get scored, some turnovers get forced, then voila, we’re right back in it. That to me is paramount for a team with Deep tourney run aspirations, because it shows that even without having a team that’s deadly from the arc we can still compete with good teams.
Even in the Maryland game we went on 2 runs to make it somewhat close in the 2nd half, problem is the Terps are just insanely deep & have **** near 2 starting lineups worth of talent that shoot the fckin paint off the hardwood lol, I mean they’re really really good.
Now will our lack of 3pt shooting rear it’s ugly against the likes of UVA or Duke etc, maybe, hopefully not, but ultimately, what we lack in consistent sharpshooting we make up for with good Defense & playmaking. We’ve also been a clutch-shooting team thus far, no we don’t shoot 3’s at a high clip throughout the game, but when we’ve needed’em we’ve gotten’em for the most part.
I still think Pack can & will be our crunch time 3pt maker when we absolutely need one from distance & if Watson can find his way onto the court as the season progresses he could be another long range shooter we’ve been looking for.
