The Importance Of The Three

The shot is an integral part of the game now and can predict success.

There’s nothing like a made 3-pointer to energize a home crowd, and sometimes a team. The bonus shot is so imbedded in the game it’s hard to recall when it wasn’t officially recognized in college basketball.

Meanwhile the 3-point line itself is a moving target, twice set farther from the basket. The NCAA started in 1986-87 with a 3-point arc 19 feet 9 inches from the center of the hoop (now the standard high school distance). When evidence mounted that the original arc rewarded a shot that was just too easy, NCAA poobahs pushed the line back a bit, to 20 feet 9 inches.

That measurement changed again as even run-of-the-mill shooters became acclimated, and in 2019-20 we got the current 22 feet 1.75 inches. Lending sanity to the equation, that matches the international distance. Don’t be surprised if there’s one more move – to 23 feet 9 inches, the demarcation point for the NBA, for which the NCAA is, after all, a valued training ground.

As originally envisioned, the 3-pointer was designed to discourage the zone defenses supposedly stifling the game; to give underdogs a fighting chance without resort to stall tactics throttled by the new shot clock; and as a way to find a role for less athletically gifted driveway jumpshooters.

Several ACC coaches, notably Bobby Cremins at Georgia Tech and Terry Holland at Virginia, shied initially from liberal use of the shot. Clemson under Cliff Ellis went in the other direction, leading the conference with .448 accuracy from long range (still considered the ACC record). Not incidentally, those Tigers posted 25 wins, a victory total yet to be surpassed at the school.

In fact, although it may seem otherwise, top ACC teams often prosper by embracing the three. Duke’s 1992 champs, the clot of high-achieving Blue Devil squads around the turn of this century, and four of the five Duke teams from the NCAA champions of 2010 through 2014, led the ACC in 3-point accuracy. UNC’s 2005 and 2009 NCAA titlists set the league’s 3-point pace. So did Virginia’s 2019 national champs, Virginia Tech’s 2022 ACC champions, and Miami’s Final Four squad of 2023, all stretching defenses in an era of dribble-drive penetration.

We tend to pay attention to other stats more than we do to 3-point acuity. But history cautions us to rethink our suppositions when it comes to valuing a team’s prowess from the bonusphere.