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Perhaps the biggest storyline coming into the 2008/09 season of college basketball was moving the 3-point line back. We’ve gone from 19 feet, 9 inches to 20 and 9 and as expected, the early returns on shooting percentages from behind the arc is as expected. They are down, but how significant has the impact been?

As a sampling, we took the 3-point stats from all the games in the top-25 last night and did some quick math to use as a baseline. There were 10 games, giving us 20 teams and here’s what we found:

- In those ten games, there were 362 3-point baskets attempted
- 117 of those fell, giving us a 32.3 shooting percentage

Last season (PDF), teams in Division I shot 35.04% from downtown collectively. This means, yes, the moved line has had an impact and as long as teams keep combining for shooting performances like:

8-30 (New Mexico State at USC)
11-53 (UT-Martin at Tennessee)
9-37 (Tulane at Texas)

These percentages will continue to drop. Interestingly enough, the only two teams that combined to shoot well from behind the new arc was when SIU Edwardsville (8-17) played Wisconsin (8-16).

Another area of concern was voiced by Bruce Pearl, saying he thought the extended 3-point arc would affect mid-majors more than it would the “BCS” schools. This might be incorrect because, while the percentages are indeed down, the “smaller” schools are still getting fat from downtown.

Hell, just ask VMI and Kentucky about that. 14-31 from 3 goes a long way towards upsetting a once-great program.

Tags: 3-Point Line, Behind the Arc, Bruce Pearl, Shooting Percentages

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