Kansas basketball: Teams love the three against the Jayhawks
Anyone that regularly watches Kansas basketball knows it, but any opponent that the Jayhawks face seems to rely on the three-pointer.
In a one-point loss to Villanova, Kansas basketball allowed 10 three-pointers to be made, out of 41 attempts. The Wildcats completely relied on the three-pointer; however, they couldn’t get any to fall which is why they only scored 56 points.
According to KenPom, teams are shooting 49.9% (we’ll call it 50%) of their shots from behind the three-point line against Kansas. That’s right, for all of the non-three attempts, an opponent is shooting an equal amount of three-pointers.
Anybody that has watched Kansas basketball this season knows that teams fire away from behind the arc, but why?
The strange thing is that teams tend to not to shoot the triple very well against Kansas. KenPom says that the Jayhawk defense is holding teams to 28.9% from behind the arc this season, which is well below the national average for this year of 33.1%. Kansas is actually 35th in the nation in three-point percentage allowed.
So despite many fans berating the Kansas perimeter defense, it’s actually one of the best in the country. Fans seem to be fooled by the aforementioned volume of threes that are made, simply because the opponent is attempting so many.
If teams aren’t attempting so many three-pointers just because Kansas is bad at defending them, it must be because the alternative simply isn’t as appealing.
Over their past five games, Kansas’ most frequent lineup has featured both Azubuike and McCormack, while their second-most frequent lineup exchanges Isaiah Moss for McCormack.
Since Kansas has been playing a two-big lineup often, it stands to reason that teams don’t want to try and drive to the basket when they’ll have to meet either seven-footer Udoka Azubuike or six-foot-ten David McCormack.
The three-pointer becomes a better option when Kansas has multiple bigs on the court, because it makes the Jayhawks spread out, or allow easy attempts from behind the arc.
Read. Marcus Garrett’s injury had an effect on Jayhawks. light
Kansas basketball fans better get used to the three-pointers, because teams aren’t going to stop trying.