So: I was stalking around, trying to figure out the third post on the Substack this week (Monday and Friday were taken care of). And then I realized that, a couple years back around this time, I got really into exploring why Tennessee should stop taking mid-range twos. What a time that was. Now they don’t take very many at all!
However: what about the teams that take a lot of analytically-unfriendly shots and should be taking them? Contrary to popular belief, there’s still some mid-range merchants out and about in men’s college basketball. You’ve just got to work a little harder to find them. Below are three examples of mid-range and difficult shot quality done right in college hoops, the first of which is free.
Trey Calvin and the Wright State Raiders will mid-range you to death
Really, this piece could be titled How Wright State Is Making Mid-Range Cool Again, but they’re not the only team doing it. They are the best team at doing it, however. If you just look at play-by-play stats from Hoop-Math, they stand out positively:
Percentage of shots that are Other Twos: 36.5% (7th-highest out of 363)
FG% on Other Twos: 46.7% (3rd-highest)
Number of other teams in America with a 35% FGA/45% FG% split on Other Twos: zero
Number of other teams in America with a 35% FGA/45% FG% split on Other Twos, 2011-2022: two (2018-19 Tennessee, 2021-22 Ohio State)
This is a pairing of volume and efficiency very rarely seen on this shot type, which generally has a national hit rate of 37-38% and is discouraged by math types such as your dear author. Obviously, if you can’t hit these shots, you shouldn’t take them. The difference is that Wright State can hit these shots, and one guy is better than anyone else in the entire nation at hitting them. Meet Trey Calvin (20.1 PPG), a senior point guard who has made more mid-range two-point field goals (120) than over 100 Division I teams have this season.
Scott Nagy’s offense doesn’t run as many ball screens as the average team, but when they do, you can all but guarantee that Calvin is looking to get up a quick jumper off of it. Calvin is shooting an absurd 54% on two-point jumpers this year, the best rate I’ve found of anyone at his shooting volume. As seen above, Calvin’s ability to make these difficult shots single-handedly pushed Wright State to triple overtime against the best team in the Horizon League, Youngstown State. In that game, Calvin scored an absurd 44 points (!) on 38 shots (!!!!) to keep the Raiders alive. In their best win of the year, a road win against an 18-8 Milwaukee team a couple weeks ago, Calvin went for 23 in an overtime win and found way after way to dice his opponent up.
These are very hard shots, but Nagy and staff clearly trust Calvin to keep hitting them. He’s not the only player who can do it, of course; Amari Davis (9.4 PPG, 42% on mid-range twos) and Keaton Norris (53% on 45 mid-range attempts) have shown a particular proficiency for keeping this shot alive. But it’s Calvin who drives the car, and if he gets hot in the Horizon League Conference Tournament (where WSU is expected to be a 5/6 seed), you could see him in the Big Dance for the second straight season.