Past 35 years: Cats 3-Point Shooting

[megablue]

I see that Mark Pope has stated that he wants to shoot 35 threes a game and lead the country in made threes. This will be a drastic change in offensive philosophy over the past thirty-five (35) years and it will be interesting and fun to see how the approach works out. For example: It appears he's talking about shooting more than twice as many threes as Cal's teams shot during his fifteen (15) years here and almost twelve (12) more than Pitino's teams did. That's a lot of threes !!
For review, reference, discussion and just plain FUN, here are some statistics I compiled since the Pitino era.
What jumps out at me, sadly so, is just how bad we were on defense last year, with such great offense. It totally killed us ... !!
Also, I noted that Pitino's best teams shot less threes that they'd been shooting earlier in his coaching career here ... !!

COACH	SEASON	GAMES	3PTA/GM	3PT	3PTA	3PT%	OFF	DEF	MGN	WINS	LOSS	WIN%	COACH
PITINO	1989-90	28	28.9	281	810	0.347	88.8	87.9	0.9	14	14	0.500	PITINO
PITINO	1990-91	28	25.5	242	715	0.338	85.9	78.1	7.8	22	6	0.786	PITINO
PITINO	1991-92	36	24.7	317	888	0.357	85.7	74.4	11.3	29	7	0.806	PITINO
PITINO	1992-93	34	25.4	340	862	0.394	87.5	69.8	17.7	30	4	0.882	PITINO
PITINO	1993-94	34	25.2	301	857	0.351	86.9	74.6	12.3	27	7	0.794	PITINO
PITINO	1994-95	33	22.3	276	736	0.375	87.4	69.0	18.4	28	5	0.848	PITINO
PITINO	1995-96	36	18.6	266	670	0.397	91.4	69.4	22.0	34	2	0.944	PITINO
PITINO	1996-98	40	19.4	287	777	0.369	83.1	62.8	20.3	35	5	0.875	PITINO
SMITH	1997-98	39	17.5	250	681	0.367	80.1	67.0	13.1	35	4	0.897	SMITH
SMITH	1998-99	37	18.3	226	676	0.334	75.4	62.7	12.7	28	9	0.757	SMITH
SMITH	1999-00	33	19.5	188	643	0.292	69.1	62.8	6.3	23	10	0.697	SMITH
SMITH	2000-01	34	20.8	245	707	0.347	79.8	70.6	9.2	24	10	0.706	SMITH
SMITH	2001-02	32	21.6	219	692	0.316	76.9	68.2	8.7	22	10	0.688	SMITH
SMITH	2002-03	36	16.3	208	585	0.356	77.3	64.1	13.2	32	4	0.889	SMITH
SMITH	2003-04	32	17.9	204	572	0.357	73.9	63.6	10.3	27	5	0.844	SMITH
SMITH	2004-05	34	18.7	218	635	0.343	73.6	62.6	11.0	28	6	0.824	SMITH
SMITH	2005-06	35	21.7	265	758	0.350	70.8	66.2	4.6	22	13	0.629	SMITH
SMITH	2006-07	34	19.1	231	651	0.355	73.4	67.7	5.7	22	12	0.647	SMITH
GILLISPIE	2007-08	31	15.9	182	493	0.369	68.5	65.6	2.9	18	13	0.581	GILLISPIE
GILLISPIE	2008-09	36	15.9	202	573	0.353	74.1	66.3	7.8	22	14	0.611	GILLISPIE
CALIPARI	2009-10	38	18.3	231	697	0.331	79.3	64.9	14.4	35	3	0.921	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2010-11	38	18.6	281	707	0.397	74.9	63.5	11.4	29	9	0.763	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2011-12	40	14.9	225	595	0.378	77.4	60.6	16.8	38	2	0.950	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2012-13	33	16.1	184	532	0.346	72.6	64.5	8.1	21	12	0.636	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2013-14	40	15.3	203	611	0.332	74.8	66.6	8.2	29	11	0.725	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2014-15	39	14.9	203	582	0.349	74.4	54.3	20.1	38	1	0.974	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2015-16	36	18.5	244	666	0.366	79.5	68.1	11.4	27	9	0.750	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2016-17	38	19.9	267	756	0.353	84.9	71.5	13.4	32	6	0.842	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2017-18	37	14.8	195	546	0.357	76.8	70.2	6.6	26	11	0.703	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2018-19	37	16.4	215	607	0.354	75.8	64.7	11.1	30	7	0.811	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2019-20	31	14.8	157	458	0.343	74.4	66.1	8.3	25	6	0.806	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2020-21	25	19.0	160	475	0.337	70.4	70.2	0.2	9	16	0.360	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2021-22	34	17.5	207	596	0.347	79.4	66.6	12.8	26	8	0.765	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2022-23	34	18.0	213	613	0.347	74.5	67.7	6.8	22	12	0.647	CALIPARI
CALIPARI	2023-24	33	24.2	327	800	0.409	89.0	79.7	9.3	23	10	0.697	CALIPARI
PITINO	8 YRS	269	23.5	2310	6315	0.366	87.0	72.6	14.4	219	50	0.814	PITINO
SMITH	10 YRS	346	19.1	2254	6600	0.342	75.1	65.5	9.6	263	83	0.760	SMITH
GILLISPIE	2 YRS	67	15.9	384	1066	0.360	71.5	66.0	5.5	40	27	0.597	GILLISPIE
CALIPARI	15 YRS	533	17.3	3312	9241	0.358	77.3	66.4	10.9	410	123	0.769	CALIPARI
	35 YRS	1215	19.1	8260	23222	0.356	78.5	67.5	11.0	932	283	0.767

 

[H00SIER-Cat]

2024 Cats averaged more points than anybody but the 96 Cats. and defended worse than the 21 Cats.

 

[megablue]

2024 Cats averaged more points than anybody but the 96 Cats. and defended worse than the 21 Cats.

You are 10000% correct. Second best offense in the country last year, but inept on defense. Actually, you had to see ot to believe it, as Cal's teams were usually pretty solid on defense. It was truly awful last year.

 

[BlueBomb]

35 threes a game? Sorry, but that ain't smart. JMO

 

[JonathanW]

35 threes a game, is "a goal". Like company management, coaches set goals higher than is realistic, so that you always can do better.
I would be surprised if we average over 30, my best guess would be 28-29 (which is still a lot). That would be about 40% of your shots. Look at RP's first UK team, incredibly unathletic, they were either shooting 3's or getting back door cuts for layups, yet they averaged 29.
Notice, as RP got more and more athletes, his teams shot fewer 3's.

 

[megablue]

35 threes a game, is "a goal". Like company management, coaches set goals higher than is realistic, so that you always can do better.
I would be surprised if we average over 30, my best guess would be 28-29 (which is still a lot). That would be about 40% of your shots. Look at RP's first UK team, incredibly unathletic, they were either shooting 3's or getting back door cuts for layups, yet they averaged 29.
Notice, as RP got more and more athletes, his teams shot fewer 3's.

BYU was second in country last year at 32.0, fwiw ...

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