Kentucky Can Shoot the 3, but That Doesn't Mean It Should

Have you ever played pickup ball where there's a guy who just jacks up three-pointer after three-pointer even though he keeps missing, insisting the whole time that he's actually a great shooter? Then when he finally hits a couple, he acts like that justifies all the previous misses.

That's Kentucky. 

Kentucky shoots threes with the confidence of a team that is making half of its attempts instead of the 30.3 percent clip that it's currently converting. It's infuriating. An open three is a good shot, but it's not always the best shot. The sooner the Wildcats get that concept down, the better.

Am I nitpicking a team that just won a game by 58 points? Yes. Because a 58-point win in November would easily be overshadowed by just one loss in March.

Let me tell you a story about an incredibly talented team that started a tournament game 0-of-20 from three and ended the game 4-of-32. It shot itself out of the game. You remember 2010, right? That team had John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Eric Bledsoe, and it didn't even make it to the Final Four because it couldn't...make...a...three.

In the five games this season, Kentucky is averaging 11.6 three-point attempts in the first half and more than three fewer attempts in the second half at 8.2. As the game goes on, it gets into the flow of how head coach John Calipari wants it to play, and the threes come in rhythm with the offense instead of being forced. Imagine if it started that way.

Look, Kentucky can make threes. Devin Booker, after a rough first three games of the season, now looks like a stone-cold assassin from downtown. Tyler Ulis is actually shooting 61.5 percent from three. Andrew Harrison is shooting a respectable 45.4 percent. Really it's Aaron Harrison who is dragging down the percentage, shooting just 5-of-21 from three for the season, and we all know better than to say he can't shoot.

So what's the problem?

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Well, for starters, Kentucky is so huge that teams are sagging in the paint and are just straight-up begging it to shoot threes. With as big as the Wildcats are, sometimes an uncontested three is a better gamble than allowing Karl Towns or Dakari Johnson a contested post-up move. I'd rather let Andrew Harrison take an open three than play him tough, let him get by me just enough to draw another defender and then throw up an easy lob to Willie Cauley-Stein.

This team just has to learn how to attack those zones it's going to see, probe for weaknesses and then kick the ball out for a three within the flow of the game instead of passing around the perimeter and then taking the best/first look it sees. Kentucky may have been 7-of-25 from three against Montana State, but when it came to good, smart three-pointers, I would estimate it shot more like 50 percent.

Oh, I almost forgot about Mr. Trey Lyles. Trey, buddy, pal, champ...consider this an intervention. You're surrounded by people who love you no matter what. But you have to stop shooting so many threes. I'm talking one, maybe two a game. You're 2-of-14 on the season. You took five against Montana State. You are a perfectly OK three-point shooter. You are not Booker. You should not be taking five threes in any game. Just...just stop it.

Bottom line? With the defenses they're going to see, the Wildcats are going to need to make some threes this season. The good news? They can.

Just don't tell them that, OK?

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