The Microwave - "Strip Threes"

Every sports fan that I’ve met is the same.  Regardless of the team you cheer for or the sport they play, every team has a perceived weakness that their fans will fuss about the MOMENT things start to go south.  Sometimes you need one more shooter.  Or a guy who can defend the pass.  Or a decent goalie.  Sometimes your team has a front office that is just laughable.  Or has a coach that has enough talent not to get fired, but also inept to the point where you could show cause for termination multiple times within one game.  Or your team’s just cursed.  By the way, you can figure out who all those teams are on your own time.

My team is, if you haven’t been following, North Carolina basketball.  Born and bred in the Carolinas by a father who was born and bred in the Carolinas, I worshipped at the altar of Dean Smith.  UNC’s current head coach, Roy Williams, was also born and bred in North Carolina and not only worshipped at the altar, but was choir boy, head of the youth group, led Bible study on Tuesday nights, and will ultimately have his own building on church grounds named for him one day, having coached under Dean, found great, but tempered, success at Kansas before returning to Carolina in a much ballyhooed move to replace Matt Doherty in the spring of 2003, days after Roy famously told Bonnie Bernstein that he “could give a shit about Carolina” in the moments after a heartbreaking KU loss to Syracuse in the national championship game, in which his Jayhawks missed about 100 free throws.  That, my friends, is how you do a run-on sentence.  That is NOT, however, the weakness I was referring to earlier.

Having learned the game under Smith, Williams’ philosophy mirrors what Carolina fans watched for 35 seasons in Chapel Hill.  Get easy shots, deny easy shots.  Easy = close.  The nuts and bolts may differ slightly, but the overall theme is the same.  It obviously works.  Check Dean’s W-L record.  Percentage-wise, Roy’s is even better.  The lack of efficient outside shooting is sometimes a sign of concern with given Carolina teams (see multiple Final Four losses), but it’s never a major issue so long as the post players get fed and put up points.  Go back thru the years and there’s a recurring theme at Carolina: great point guards and great big men.  It has continued into the Roy Williams era.  But it’s the defensive side of the ball where Carolina fans see another recurring theme that stems from Dean Smith’s defensive philosophy.

Opponent’s 3 point shooting.

Before 1987, in college basketball, there was no carrot dangling 19 feet, 9 inches away from the hoop.  A made field goal was 2 points.  Whether it was Michael Jordan’s rock-a-bye baby buzzer dunk at Maryland or Walter Davis’ 35 footer at the horn against Duke, two points was two points.  For the first 25 years of Dean Smith’s coaching career, he did not have to diagram a defense predicated around perimeter shooting.  And why would he? There’s a reason big men shoot a higher FG% than perimeter shooters – it’s a closer shot! Protecting the paint was the primary goal of a good defense.  Once the three point line was instituted for the 86-87 season, the game slowly began to evolve into the drive-and-dish offenses we see all over basketball (college and pro) today.  Suddenly, hitting the three ball – while staying away from Dean’s tall monsters down low – became a legit strategy for defeating the perennially elite Tar Heels.

Google “Dennis Scott Tar Heels” and look at the carnage. 

In 1989, in one of the most famous Tar Heel killing performances ever, the sophomore Scott scored 28 in Atlanta against the Heels, hitting 7 of 14 three pointers, the last being a trey at the buzzer after a stolen inbounds pass, a play which resulted in my father’s watch being slung across the living room in complete disgust.  In the first meeting four weeks prior, Scott scored 29 points with a 9-18 long range showing in a 92-85 Carolina win in Chapel Hill.  The next season, Scott and Georgia Tech “Lethal Weapon 3” teammate Brian Oliver scorched Carolina for 37 and 34 points respectively in a 102-75 thrashing, though amazingly, Scott only hit 3 of his 13 three point attempts.  The two combined to take 48 of the Yellow Jackets’ 70 shots, proving the new theory that athletic guards who can shoot the long ball can carve up a Dean Smith defense.  In the Chapel Hill rematch, Scott went off again, this time for 33 points on 7-15 three point shooting, in Carolina’s 81-79 upset win.  Mercifully, Scott left for the NBA, foregoing his senior season and sparing Carolina’s ’91 squad the torture of having to deal with him twice more.  Do the math.  That’s 32 points a game on 43% three point shooting.  (With the 3-13 performance included.)  

Scott’s just one example, one of the worst Carolina offenders of them all, but he played a game we’ve seen played out for 20+ years since.  However, worse than a legitimate NBA player like Scott, is the times when some guy, the average college hoops fan hasn’t heard of (and often playing with the “I wanted to go to Carolina” chip on his shoulder), goes off on Carolina like Scott used to do.  The most recent example of this came a couple of Saturdays ago when Deividas Dulkys, a guy who had only scored in double digits 4 times this season and whose career high in four seasons was 22 points, went bonkers for Florida State, pouring in 32 points on 8-10 long distance shooting in the Seminoles’ rout of UNC.

It was that performance that led me to do some research.  I’m too busy (and/or lazy) to do research of any sort, but Dulkys inexplicable output – and Dick Vitale’s insistence of having his picture taken with the kid – was the breaking point.  Why am I yelling the same things at the TV every time Carolina plays? How can a team so talented get burned by the same crap on a regular basis? Am I imagining this trend? If so, is it as bad as it seems?

For the quickness of this study, I only took data from highly touted Roy Williams’ coached UNC teams – 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012.  In the interest of speeding the process along even further, I only looked at UNC losses, thus sparing me the horror of having to examine the 2008 UNC/BC box score where I recall Tyrese Rice scoring roughly 135 first half points in a game in which the Eagles blew a huge lead after Rice mercifully returned to Earth in the second half.  I made note of the final regulation score, what the opposing team shot from long distance in that game, what the opposing team’s 3PT% for that season was, and to what extent that team shooting its season average for the game would’ve affected the outcome, all other things being equal.  The results were not surprising.

Over the five and a half seasons examined, including the current season, Carolina has accrued 28 losses.  Among these include the Roy vs. Kansas Final Four embarrassment, two excruciating Regional Final losses, ACC Tournament losses, holiday tournament defeats, and conference upsets.  Of these nearly six seasons, only four losses came at home, which is notable.  10.5 were on neutral courts, if you want to classify this season’s loss to UNLV in the Las Vegas Invitational as a neutral site, though I’ve never seen the crowd storm the court at a neutral site game before.  Nevertheless, I was looking for a common thread of opposing three point shooting… and I found it.  Of these 28 losses, 22 times the opposing team shot better than its season average.  79% of the time.

The 2005 Champs dropped four games, and while none featured a ridiculous difference in opposing three point shooting percentage, each loss did see the opponent over its season average.  The noticeable numbers came from the opposing guards, as Will Bynum did shoot 5-10 from deep with 35 points in GT’s ACC Semifinal upset of the Heels.  Chris Paul had a crazy good day, though limited from three, when Wake beat Carolina, too.  Nothing too far out of the ordinary.

The 2007 team, however, is a totally different story.  This was Tyler Hansbrough’s sophomore year, with Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, and Brandan Wright all freshman.  The team lost seven games, six of which saw the opposing team outshoot its season average from three.  Of those six, including the Regional Final loss to Georgetown, Carolina would’ve won four of them outright had they held their opponent to their season average 3PT%.  Two other cases – at Georgia Tech and the preseason NIT semifinal against Gonzaga – would’ve seen the game come down to a single possession.  In three instances – at NC State, at Virginia Tech, Georgetown, the opponent exceeded 50% from downtown.  Perhaps the 2007 team was better than I had always presumed.  These are staggering numbers – they conceivably could been in the Final Four with ONE LOSS had they defended the long ball.  (Of course, then you’re talking a probable different bracket and whatnot…)

The 2008 Final Four team only lost three times, none on the road, and none with a silly shooting discrepancy.  Strangely enough, the double blowout loss to Kansas in the Final Four saw the Jayhawks below their average clip.  Yes, Duke and Maryland outshot their season averages in wins over Carolina in Chapel Hill, but in only the Maryland game would it have made a difference, and being an 82-80 final, the one shot difference would’ve changed the result, but the game definitely plays out differently if you take that into account.  Out of curiosity, I looked at the BC win anyway, along with the trio of ridiculously hard-fought wins over Clemson that season, as well.  It turns out Tyrese Rice only scored 46 points, but did shoot 8-12 from downtown, well above his personal average of 35%.  BC as a team shot 9-19, well above their 36% season average.  In only one of the three Clemson games did the Tigers outshoot their season average.  In the first meeting, the 90-88 OT thriller at Littlejohn, Clemson only shot 6-24, down from their 37% average.  The double OT rematch at the Smith Center – the closest Clemson has ever come to winning in Chapel Hill – the Tigers shot 43% on the day.  Carolina wouldn’t have needed extra time if they would’ve just guarded the three.  And in the ACC Final, Clemson was just a nick under their season average and maybe it turns it into a one possession game, but UNC still likely takes the crown.

The 2009 Champs were 4-4 in being victimized by teams getting hot from long range, with each team besting its season 3PT%.  The losses at Wake Forest and Maryland are directly correlated to hot shooting, and the 73-70 ACC semifinal loss (without Ty Lawson, of course) saw FSU hit one more long ball than their season average would dictate.  Theoretically, the game changes in the final possessions and possibly goes to OT.  Only the home loss to BC,where Tyrese Rice only score 25 on sub-par shooting, couldn’t be blamed on lack of three point defense, although the Eagles did outshoot their season average.

The 2011 bunch was different, being ranked highly in the preseason, not living up to the hype, losing “Some Other Kid” Larry Drew II, and then gelling into a formidable contender under the reigns of freshman PG Kendall Marshall.  The team lost seven times, with a remarkable three losses coming in games in which the opponent shot worse from the three than its season average.  The third of that set was the loss at Duke, where the Blue Devils may have shot relatively poorly, but Nolan Smith ripped UNC for 34 point on 3-6 long range shooting, and Seth Curry had a big second half with big shots from the three point line.  Losses to Vandy in Puerto Rico, to GT in Atlanta, and the ACC Final loss to Duke saw each opponent outshoot its average, but nothing which would’ve made a difference in the outcome.  The only loss that hot shooting did make a difference?  The East Regional Final defeat by Kentucky, in which the Wildcats hit 12-22 from deep, three shots better than their season average.  Nine points in a 76-69 final goes a long way.

Thus far on the 2012 campaign, the Heels have dropped three games.  Vegas shot 41% from downtown, but the uptick wasn’t the difference in the outcome – that would be Carolina’s stagnant second half offense.  Kentucky was under their season average in UNC’s one point loss at Rupp in December.  Then, of course, the FSU-Dulkys debacle, where the Seminoles would’ve had to miss all but one of their 27 three point attempts for Carolina to have a chance to win.  (UNC showing up in the second half would’ve helped, too.)

That’s it.  22 of Carolina’s 28 losses examined saw the other team outshoot its season 3PT%, an overall average of 41%, a 5% uptick from season averages.  However, when you eliminate the games in which the other team didn’t hit its season average, that deficit jumps to 8%, even as the opponents’ average 3PT% remains at 36%.  The best three point shooting teams in the land don’t shoot 44% on the season.  And if you extrapolate all of the data, they probably don’t against Carolina either.  It goes back to the coaching philosophy – get easy shots, defend easy shots.  Chances are the long ball won’t do the trick, and Roy Williams’ 78.4% winning percentage at Carolina is proof that the system works, even if it drives fans crazy the other 22% of the time.

(Of note, I didn’t dig deep into individual scorers, but the lead scorer and/or shooter for each game examined averaged 24.5 points a game with 3.6 3PM vs. 6.8 3PA, a 53% average.)