Alabama Three-Point Stat Porn And The Alabamalytic They Must Use To Take Down Duke
Harry How. Getty Images.Somewhere out there Thursday night Joe Mazzulla was blushing. 51 threes in a college game is insane. And if you take away Grant Nelson's full court heave at the end of the first half, that would put them at 50.0% from deep. 25/50.
Unreal.
Let's take a moment to soak in what Alabama did Thursday night before identifying a game plan to pull off an upset vs Duke.
Mark Sears' 10 made threes trails just Jeff Fryer of Loyola Marymount in 1990
It's a shame to think Mark S' innie has no memory of what his outie did vs BYU. Ten threes. Talk about being severed from reality. Now he did take an ill-advised midrange baseline shot with no one close to him which he just so happened to swish. One of just three midrange attempts Alabama took all night (went 2/3). I'm sure he got a talking to as he never even gave the midrange another look.
Alabama's 25 made threes is NOT the most in an NCAA Men's basketball game
You probably already read Alabama set the tournament record - which is true. But hold up. Assuming my scrape worked accurately (big assumption I know) I have just north of 113,000 games recorded in NCAA Men's history. Just two teams ever managed to make more than 25 threes in a game. Wyoming on November 26, 2021, and Davidson on November 10, 2017. To me, that's almost more impressive to think about.
But let's add some context here. Wyoming did this vs Hastings (NE), a team that, at most, is almost worthy of having it's logo represented on college basketball reference:
Then you have Davidson, who must have found some Steph Curry dust stowed away in the locker room for this one when they beat Charleston Southern 110-62: going 26/53 from downtown.
40 players in NCAA history have hit 11 or more threes in a game
The top-two have 15. Robert Morris' Josh Williams on November 14, 2018 and Furman's Jordan Lyons literally the day after. Kinda weird. But you won't be too surprised to learn both opposing teams in these games have the same logo as Hastings (NE) on college basketball reference.
Alabama's .720 effective field goal percentage is the best for any team since… damnit… Duke five days ago…
OK - not the stat Bama fans wanted to end with heading into their matchup with the Devils on Saturday night. .778 vs Baylor - largely in part of Tyrese Proctor going bananas. But the Blue Devils played with much slower pace than the Tide (61.3 vs 79.7) so there's a chance the speed of the game will roll in Bama's favor. Kentucky kept the pace at a 76 in one of the three Duke losses on the season, the highest paced game Duke played all season. So maybe this is the recipe that presents confusion for this team with a bunch of guys here for just a season.
I got Bama in an absolute barn burning blockbuster for this reason. It's not necessarily about taking a crap ton of threes. But if you're going to make 50% of them that helps. It's about playing fast. Test Duke's ability to communicate on defense and trust your transition defense is better than theirs. Sure, they have the one and done super stars. But communication is hard. Use Duke's strength against them. Bama certainly has more experience running back on D.
I picked Florida to win it all because I'm a huge casual that saw them play good in the conference tournament. But I also picked them to beat Alabama in the championship game. And seeing the landscape as it stands, if Bama doesn't beat Duke, I don't see anyone else putting up much of a fight. Including Florida.
Whatever happens, hard to imagine this isn't the game of the tournament.
@Stathole
