Three Point Shooting in the 8th Region

[ColonelMike]

I haven't done the full comparison with last season, but it appears that the three point shooting - at least here in the hectic, crazy early weeks of the 2021 season - is down in the 8th Region, at least, in terms of accuracy.

Considering that this is a little surprising, given the proficiency of the young shooters in the 8th last year, I have to think that the "COVID Chaos" has a big hand in the decreased proficiency.

A look at the leaders...ranked by average made threes per game:

1. South Oldham      11 made threes / game (#1)     43.1% (#3 accuracy)      Some things never change.    South continues to lead the region in long-range bombing, having made at least 9 threes in each of their first 4 games.   South holds the top 3 state records for most made threes in a season, including last season's 349 made threes, which is #3 in the state record books.   (South's 2016 and 2017 seasons rank #1 and #2 in the state.)   In four games, senior Cayden Brown has the most makes (10 of 21), but it's freshman Christian Veirs that's turning heads, having made 7 of 9 threes (78%) while coming off the bench.
2. Walton-Verona     9.8 made threes       44.4% (#2 accuracy)     Sophomore Carter Krohman leads the Bearcats with 26 makes in 40 attempts for a whopping 65%.
3. North Oldham       7.7 made threes     35.4% (#5 accuracy)     Sophomore Dallas Roberts (8 of 16, 50%) and junior "Rico" Carr-Cole (10 of 23, 43.5%) have made 18 of North's 23 made threes in three games.    Both are showing exceptional accuracy, and Roberts' range is scary.    He hit two 25-27 footers against Oldham County last week.
4. Simon Kenton     7.5 made threes       36.9%  (#4 accuracy)    Junior Isaac Miller has made the most (11), but freshman Travis Krohman is 10 of 20 to start the year for a sizzling 50%.
5. Williamstown      6.9 made threes      28.1%      Gunner Feagan has 19 makes on the season, while hitting 32.2%
6. Woodford County   6.7 made threes   49.7% (#1 accuracy)     Woodford is hitting the best percentage from beyond the arc, and Brian White leads the way, having hit 24 of 37 threes (64.9%!!).   He's hit 13 of 17 in the last 5 games (76.5%)
7. Spencer County      6.7 made threes     26.4%    Spencer is making more threes than most, but only Collins and Anderson County shoot the trey worse.
8. Gallatin County       6.1 made threes    34.6%    Drake Skidmore is 12 of 30 for 40% from beyond the arc for the Wildcats.
9. Anderson County    6.0 made threes    26.1%    Jacob Spencer (10 of 26, 38.5%) leads the way for the Bearcats, but the team overall isn't hitting the long ball well.
10. Shelby County       5.5 made threes     32.8%     
11. Oldham County      5.0 made threes   30%   Oldham's only played 3 games, so statistics aren't real credible yet, but junior reserve forward Sam Powell's early productivity is impressive; he's hit 5 of 8 for 62.%.
12. Henry County     4.9 made threes   31%
13. Grant County      4.8 made threes  30.9%
14. Owen County      4.6 made threes     30.6%
15. Carroll County     4.0 made threes     34.8%
16. Collins                  3.7 made threes      24.4%
17. Trimble County   3.6 made threes     27.8%
18. Eminence            1.0 made three     27.8%

Interestingly, there's several young underclassmen setting the pace.....Sophomores like Dallas Roberts (North Oldham) and Carter Krohman (Walton-Verona) and freshmen like Christian Veirs (South Oldham) and Travis Krohman (SK) are really off to hot starts.

District making the most threes / game:    District 29    South Oldham and North Oldham both rank in the top three in terms of productivity beyond the arc, and both rank in the top 5 in accuracy.   Oldham is further down the list, but still hits a respectable five per game.

District making the fewest threes:   District 31 - Only Gallatin (6.1 made threes / game) is averaging more than 5 makes a game.

Best Three Point Shooting District:   Essentially a tie between the 29th and 32nd.   The 32nd has two teams shooting in the top 4, percentage-wise (W-V and SK) while the 29th has two in the top 5, percentage-wise (South Oldham and North Oldham).    The 32nd's Grant County (30.9%) and the 29th's Oldham County (30%) are a wash....the 32nd has one extra team, Williamstown, which is below average at 28.1%.

Worst three point shooting district:   Right now, it's the 30th.   Three of five teams (Spencer, Anderson, and Collins) are the three worst-shooting three point teams in the region, in terms of percentages at 26.4%, 26.1%, and 24.4%, respectively.   Shelby sits near "average" at 32.8%.   Woodford is the bright spot, sporting the region's top percentage beyond the arc at 49.7%.

I think this region has a lot of great shooters....I'm going to be interested to see how dramatic the improvement is in terms of three point shooting as the season moves along.   I think the improvement could be considerable.

CM

 

 

[Mojocat]

14 hours ago, ColonelMike said:

A look at the leaders...ranked by average made threes per game:

1. South Oldham      11 made threes / game (#1)     43.1% (#3 accuracy)      Some things never change.    South continues to lead the region in long-range bombing, having made at least 9 threes in each of their first 4 games.   South holds the top 3 state records for most made threes in a season, including last season's 349 made threes, which is #3 in the state record books.   (South's 2016 and 2017 seasons rank #1 and #2 in the state.)   In four games, senior Cayden Brown has the most makes (10 of 21), but it's freshman Christian Veirs that's turning heads, having made 7 of 9 threes (78%) while coming off the bench.

That is a really good and informative post, thanks CM.  I'm not sure what Simpson does - I have never seen a practice - but whatever he does to create good shooters, it works.  Brown, it seems to me, just took a couple of games to start looking comfortable on the perimeter, and so I expect his percentage to continue to rise.  He will end up taking and making the most 3s on the team, I suspect, and it may not be close by year end (well, depending on how many games we get in).  Veirs likely needs to just shoot more, based on those percentages (he's making over 73% of his shots overall, including 2s), but he's only a freshmen, so we'll see how that goes.  He's a kid that  historically has had to be prodded to shoot more, he's wired more like a play-maker than a prolific scorer.

Back to Simpson's ways of creating 3 point shooters.....it had to impact his process when his players got no time in the gym during the summer and very very little in the fall.  And I'm sure that applies to all these teams - missed practice time will invariably negatively impact shooting percentages.  I think that's the answer to your question.  You can't make up that lost time, so I would expect the downward trend to be season-long.

But I was wrong once!

 

[ColonelMike]

26 minutes ago, Mojocat said:

That is a really good and informative post, thanks CM.  I'm not sure what Simpson does - I have never seen a practice - but whatever he does to create good shooters, it works.  Brown, it seems to me, just took a couple of games to start looking comfortable on the perimeter, and so I expect his percentage to continue to rise.  He will end up taking and making the most 3s on the team, I suspect, and it may not be close by year end (well, depending on how many games we get in).  Veirs likely needs to just shoot more, based on those percentages (he's making over 73% of his shots overall, including 2s), but he's only a freshmen, so we'll see how that goes.  He's a kid that  historically has had to be prodded to shoot more, he's wired more like a play-maker than a prolific scorer.

Back to Simpson's ways of creating 3 point shooters.....it had to impact his process when his players got no time in the gym during the summer and very very little in the fall.  And I'm sure that applies to all these teams - missed practice time will invariably negatively impact shooting percentages.  I think that's the answer to your question.  You can't make up that lost time, so I would expect the downward trend to be season-long.

But I was wrong once!

 

That's exactly what I was driving at, and the reason behind the research.

Knowing that none of the teams had the summer programs they usually have - and knowing how much that means to their shooting - I wanted to see how the three point shooting percentages were looking three weeks into the season.

The results were exactly what I expected.   All relatively low - 11 of 18 teams shooting below the "benchmark" of 33% from beyond the arc.   

As for Cayden Brown of South, he currently has made the most threes for the Dragons, and I suspect he will finish the year as the top long-range threat for South, in terms of made threes.   He looked good against Henry County Saturday, with four makes.