burnspbesq
01-18-2015, 06:50 PM
die by the three? Well, sometimes. But in light of the nearly unprecedented heaving up of threes by the Duke women's last four opponents, and given the men's success in daring Louisville to bomb away from deep, I thought a high-level look at some data might be interesting. The usual caveats about small sample size and the potential effect of factors that aren't easy to quantify apply.
The Duke women's last four opponents--Cuse, FSU, VaTech, and Miami--have launched a total of 139 threes (an average of 34.7 per game). Of the four, only Cuse exceeded its season three-point shooting percentage against Duke (34.2 vs. 29.5). FSU is actually a good three-point shooting team (34.8 percent on the year), but they shot 29 percent from three against us.
Perhaps more importantly, only Cuse got better than 1.0 PPP on possessions that ended with a three. FSU, VaTech, and Miami got .88, .82, and .65, respectively. That's not exactly world-beating "defensive efficiency," but I think most D1 coaches would take it most of the time.
Having watched all five games, there are a couple of qualitative factors that I think play into this.
(1) There is no doubt that the Duke women's match-up zone can be attacked in a way that will yield a lot of quality looks from three--IF an opposing offense is willing to patiently attack the zone, go inside-out, and make it shift laterally a couple of times. FSU did that to great effect late in the game. In contrast, Cuse and Miami are teams that want to run and attack of the dribble. Yanking up the first available three, or setting a screen at the top and yanking one up from behind the screen, are not recipes for success.
(2) There are open corner threes, and there are "open" corner threes with a 6-4 shot-blocker flying out at you. Catch-and-shoot means catch-and-shoot; it doesn't mean catch-hesitate-take a look at the post-and-shoot.
(3) The Louisville men are not a good perimeter shooting team. We challenged them to beat us by doing something they don't normally do well, and they couldn't. If I were K, I wouldn't hesitate to zone against teams that shoot less than about 34 percent from three. I wouldn't invite anybody to do what we know they do well.
Bottom line: an open three for a bad three-point shooter is not a defensive breakdown. It's the defense working as intended.
The Duke women's last four opponents--Cuse, FSU, VaTech, and Miami--have launched a total of 139 threes (an average of 34.7 per game). Of the four, only Cuse exceeded its season three-point shooting percentage against Duke (34.2 vs. 29.5). FSU is actually a good three-point shooting team (34.8 percent on the year), but they shot 29 percent from three against us.
Perhaps more importantly, only Cuse got better than 1.0 PPP on possessions that ended with a three. FSU, VaTech, and Miami got .88, .82, and .65, respectively. That's not exactly world-beating "defensive efficiency," but I think most D1 coaches would take it most of the time.
Having watched all five games, there are a couple of qualitative factors that I think play into this.
(1) There is no doubt that the Duke women's match-up zone can be attacked in a way that will yield a lot of quality looks from three--IF an opposing offense is willing to patiently attack the zone, go inside-out, and make it shift laterally a couple of times. FSU did that to great effect late in the game. In contrast, Cuse and Miami are teams that want to run and attack of the dribble. Yanking up the first available three, or setting a screen at the top and yanking one up from behind the screen, are not recipes for success.
(2) There are open corner threes, and there are "open" corner threes with a 6-4 shot-blocker flying out at you. Catch-and-shoot means catch-and-shoot; it doesn't mean catch-hesitate-take a look at the post-and-shoot.
(3) The Louisville men are not a good perimeter shooting team. We challenged them to beat us by doing something they don't normally do well, and they couldn't. If I were K, I wouldn't hesitate to zone against teams that shoot less than about 34 percent from three. I wouldn't invite anybody to do what we know they do well.
Bottom line: an open three for a bad three-point shooter is not a defensive breakdown. It's the defense working as intended.