The argument to shoot fewer 3s has merit. Against Power 5 opponents we've shot 55% from 2 and 26% from 3. Separating Power 5 from other competition is reasonable given the large difference in talent, athleticism, size, and length.
I don't think you can eliminate the 3-point shot entirely - teams would pack the paint and our 2PT shooting would probably crater. But there's a strong case for limiting it to 10-15 attempts per game, taking 3s only in specific situations: transition, end of shot clock, inside-out offense when the defense collapses. The key is avoiding early shot-clock 3s.
It's worth noting that even our best shooters (35% overall) drop to around 30% against Power 5 teams (0.90 points per possession), which is still below our 2PT efficiency of 1.10 PPP. So even selective shooting from our better shooters still favors 2s in these matchups.
We somewhat executed this vs UNC, but statistical variance hurt us - going 1-13 instead of the expected 3-4 makes may have cost us the win. And that's actually part of the point: at 26%, you're already playing with fire on variance. The fewer attempts, the less it can swing games against you.
This all translates to an identity: bully ball, selective 3s in high-value situations, and using our depth to increase tempo (easier 2s in transition) while creating defensive pressure to wear opponents down. Play to our strengths, minimize our weaknesses, and control what we can control.
How many power conference games have we played?
Why aren't you using career three point shooting % for the guys that have played a ton of college games already (or just using their numbers vs power conference teams would suffice).
I mean your assuming we are going to continue to shoot 26% vs power 5 conference teams when making this argument and that just doesn't hold any water at all. I don't think this is a great 3 point shooting team and I think that Pope needs to adapt as a guy that likes to take a ton of them. But I think to say we shouldn'tt take any at all is a bit silly as the OP was suggesting. You know what happens with that? We take 100% twos, the defense knows this and adjusts and our 2 point FG% also fades. There's a bit of game theory with this. Even poor 3 point shooting teams need to take some. You can't just assume here that if UK didn't take those 13 threes (already a low number), that it wouldnt have affected our 2 point FG%. We could have shot zero threes and still lost.
If we shot that poorly from 3 an entire season vs good teams, this argument is kind of pointless anyways because UK will not be making even the NCAA tournament at that rate.
Also I think there's this fallacy on the board about there being this major difference between cupcake city and conference teams but in reality if you compare what teams do from 3, it doesn't vary a whole lot. Leading more credence to the whole "offense controls 3 point FG% more than defenses do".
If you are a good shooting team from 3, you are going to be regardless of competition.
Last year we shot 37.5% on the season.
In conference play we shot 39.9%,
That was against a historically good SEC. We shot better as the comp got better, not worse.
What about 2024
40.9% on the season
41.1% in the SEC.
This belief about because it was done vs weaker teams and that meaning something just isn't remotely true.
