FanPost

Hand Wringing Over the Threeeeeeeeee!!

There was a lot of comment before the season started and especially lately that our three point shooting could be UK's achilles heal. While we haven't shot the three very well the last few games and Jimmy Dykes last night (yeah I still like him weird hair and all) acted like it was a problem....is it really heading into the tournament?

Eric Crawford in today's CJ brought up some of this and I went digging a little further and came up with the following numbers based on KenPom stats and the NCAA stats. The average points per game is obvious but the last number is what percentage the three pointer is of our offense. Forgive me if the columns aren't straight.

Team APG 3 point%

Duke 79.7 29.0

Kansas 82.6 26.6

UK 80.5 22.9

Purdue 73.4 23.0

Syracuse 81.3 26.6

Villanova 83.8 27.3

Looking at the numbers....it would appear we're putting up very similar points per game while the three is not as crucial to us as it is to other teams. The point in my mind is if we're hitting three's GREAT.........as Pelphery said after the Arkansas game, "if they're hitting from outside no one can beat them" BUT with Cousins and PP, we have ways to score three more consistently from a more traditional source.

Bottom line...hitting three's from outside will make life easier but this team isn't going to live or die in the tournament based on their three point shooting.