A very short post on 3PT% regression

not even 700 words so you can't yell at me about how long it is!!!

No fancy stuff this morning. Here are some things I posted on Twitter.

This is a thing I’ve been looking into because, frankly, I was very annoyed by Ole Miss’s 13-0 start. The below graphic is how teams who shot 40%+ from three did the rest of the way:

And these were the teams highlighted. The two bolded teams are the two teams who’ve managed to sustain recklessly hot shooting since the NCAA moved the three-point line to the international distance before the 2019-20 season. 2020-21 is excluded for very obvious reasons.

I’m interested in this for some pretty obvious reasons.

1. Hot streaks aren’t sustainable because they’re streaks. Which is fine. I played basketball and still do. I suck, but even I, a nerd blogger who had glasses in his Twitter picture for five years, can get flaming hot from time to time. On Sunday I went to the park. For 30 minutes, I was my usual meh self; in the final five minutes I was pulling up from 30 feet and hitting it 70% of the time. This doesn’t happen often, because if it did, I probably would not suck at basketball, but it’s an example to show you that you can just get hot.

2. Very few in the college basketball media sphere seem to be able to take on the idea of a hot streak not being the whole story. I won’t provide specifics here because I am a coward and follow a few people who apply here, but hear me out: Baylor shot 47% from three in November/December. There is no team in history who has done that over a full season. It would be pretty cool if Baylor did, because I like history, but it probably won’t happen. Anyway, I bring this up, because you see Baylor shoot 47% or Kentucky shoot 41% and it’s like everyone just forgets the rest of the season exists. Guys, they’re probably good shooters, but they aren’t going to shoot like the 2015-16 Warriors for an entire season. The 2015-16 Warriors finished at 41.6%!

3. The teams that apply for 2023-24 which are as follows.

When I see those teams it’s a clear list of teams whose value may have peaked already. I think Indiana State actually can sustain it because they also rank #1 in 2PT%, or did prior to production of this harried article, but, like…you really think Baylor is gonna shoot 47% in Big 12 play? They’re already down below 45%. Three of the teams on this list have either gotten demolished in the past week (Ole Miss) or taken truly embarrassing losses (Miami and Colorado).

But! The flip side.

These are as of today, but considering how few games have been played in January thus far, it’s not a huge deal.

The very obvious test case of our theory here is Texas A&M, whose value has never been lower. If that 26% figure held, it would be the lowest three-point percentage in program history by over 3%. Now, A&M is 9-6, 0-2 SEC, and has more or less nuked their non-conference resume (wins over Ohio State, SMU, and Iowa State) by barfing up a blowout loss at home to LSU and a double-digit road loss to a very good Auburn team.

If A&M’s 3PT% rises by 5% the rest of the way, that’s a team that’s around 3 points better per game. That’s not bad at all, considering that if you added 3 points to A&M’s KenPom Adjusted Efficiency Margin (not how it works, but bear with me), A&M would go from 34th to 22nd, or roughly a 6 seed. When they had the hot streak of a lifetime in SEC play last year, they finished…33rd.

There is no real point to this post other than providing some context to some #tweetz but when did that ever stop me. Have a good Friday my friends.