Ranking the Deadliest 3-Point Snipers in College Basketball in 2015-16
The three-point shot is the great equalizer in college basketball, taking away any advantage an opponent might have in size, strength or speed. All that can be overcome by a player who can get open on the perimeter and knock down the long-range shot.
It's getting to the point where nearly every college basketball player thinks he's a great three-point shooter and as a result, stats guru Ken Pomeroy projects the 2015-16 season will end up with the highest three-point attempt rate. Of the 351 Division I schools, 64 were taking at least 40 percent of their shots from beyond the arc through Monday's games.
Some people just have more of a knack for the long ball than others. Nine Division I players have sunk at least 70 threes this season, and several are draining more than 50 percent of their attempts.
We've ranked the 10 best three-point shooters in the country, factoring in their accuracy, frequency and how much the three is part of their overall offensive game.
10. Emmett Naar, St. Mary's
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St. Mary's Australian pipeline is well-chronicled, with the school plucking the likes of Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova from Down Under and then sending them to the NBA. Might Emmett Naar be the next one?
The 6'1" sophomore guard has been at the forefront of the Gaels' 17-2 start to this season, scoring a team-high 14.3 points per game on 55.8 percent shooting. That includes a stellar 59.7 percent efficiency rate from three-point range, which would be good enough for best in the country if Naar took more outside shots.
Naar is 40-of-67 on threes, after going 35-of-78 as a freshman. In West Coast Conference play, he's shooting a pedestrian 15-of-29 from beyond the line, though he's 8-of-12 during a three-game win streak.
9. Jordan Woodard, Oklahoma
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Because of the presence of Buddy Hield, Oklahoma's other players often get overlooked. But the Sooners aren't tied for the Big 12 lead and No. 1 in the country just because of Hield; the play of Jordan Woodard has been just as important.
And like Hield, Woodard is showing off an amazing stroke from three-point range.
The 6'0" junior guard upped his accuracy for the season to 54.4 percent after making 3-of-5 from outside in Tuesday's blowout win over Texas Tech. He's tops in the country in three-point shooting among eligible players, having made 49 of his 90 attempts so far.
Woodard made only 44 threes in his first two seasons, on 140 tries.
8. Giddy Potts, Middle Tennessee
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Giddy Potts isn't exclusively a three-point shooter, but if he decided to just camp out behind the line and wait for an open look, it might not be a bad idea. At 51.1 percent, the 6'2" sophomore guard is tied for third nationally among players who have made at least 2.5 threes per game this season.
Overall, he's shooting 52.9 percent, one of three Middle Tennessee starters that are shooting at least 50 percent from the field. That accuracy has helped the Blue Raiders to a 14-5 record and 6-1 start in Conference USA, good enough for second place.
Potts missed four games midway through the season, held out because of some unfinished coursework (per Aldo Giovanni Amato of the Daily News Journal), and MTSU went 1-3 during that stretch, including its only league loss. The Blue Raiders are 6-0 since Potts' return, and he's averaged 18.8 points while shooting 53.7 percent (22-of-41) from deep.
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7. London Perrantes, Virginia
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Virginia executed a massive late-game comeback on Tuesday night to win at Wake Forest, scoring 18 points in the final 79 seconds by making seven of their final eight shots, including four threes in the last minute. Just as shocking, London Perrantes wasn't involved in that late outside scoring, which became his thing in 2015-16.
Perrantes was 0-for-3 from three-point range on Tuesday, which dropped his percentage for the year to 52.7. He's only made 39 threes, including a career-high seven earlier this month at Virginia Tech, where he was 6-of-7 from beyond the arc in the second half. Since ACC play began, the 6'2" junior guard is 5-of-15 on first-half three-pointers and 13-of-22 over the final 20 minutes.
This has enabled Perrantes to score a career-best 11.9 points per game, almost double the 6.4 he scored last season.
6. Jaylen Bland, UC-Riverside
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If the season ended today, Jaylen Bland would finish in first place nationally in made three-pointers with 82. But that would only be the second-most he's scored in his career, draining 95 threes last season for UC-Riverside.
The 6'3" senior guard has racked up the long-distance makes by also taking the second-most three-pointers (194) in Division I, translating to a still-solid 42.3 percent rate that's up from 38.8 percent as a junior. Only NJIT's Damon Lynn, the active D-I leader in threes with 307, has put up more outside shots (212) in 2015-16.
Bland is scoring a team-high 16.9 points per game for the Highlanders, who are 11-11 overall but 2-4 in the Big West. They've won two of their last three league games, though, with Bland making a combined 11-of-19 threes in wins over Cal State-Northridge and Long Beach State.
5. Darius Dawkins, Jacksonville
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At 11-11, Jacksonville has already surpassed its win total from a year ago, when it went 10-22. Having Darius Dawkins draining threes at such a high rate and efficiency has helped the Dolphins to rebound from that poor performance in 2014-15.
The 6'7" junior wing is shooting a nice, round 50 percent from three-point range, making 70 of 140 shots in his first full season of Division I play. He played eight minutes in one game a year ago before an injury caused him to take a medical redshirt, having spent the previous two seasons at junior colleges in Arizona and Texas.
Dawkins is scoring 13.9 points per game, with almost 80 percent of his points coming from beyond the arc. He's had four games this season with at least six threes.
4. Trent Mackey, North Florida
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Trent Mackey made 112 three-pointers and shot 43.8 percent from outside in two seasons at Louisiana-Monroe, but he was that team's only deep threat. Since transferring to North Florida, he's found himself among more like-minded players, and it's helped him become even better with his perimeter game.
The 6'3" senior guard is the most prolific three-point shooter on a team that lives and dies from deep. The Ospreys attempt 47.9 percent of their shots from outside, the fifth-highest rate in the country, with Mackey accounting for 80 of their 290 made threes.
Mackey is also the most accurate shooter on the team at 48.8 percent on threes. North Florida as a team shoots 43 percent from deep, which is fifth in Division I.
North Florida is running away with the Atlantic Sun lead at 6-0 after winning the conference last season, despite Mackey shooting only 43.1 percent (22-of-51) from outside.
3. Duncan Robinson, Michigan
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There isn't an official register of players who have made the jump from Division III to Division I in college basketball, let alone ones that earned scholarships with power-conference teams. But if there are more dead-eye distance shooters down there like Duncan Robinson, expect other schools to start mining the D-III level.
A 6'8" sophomore guard, Robinson shot 45.6 percent from three-point range for Williams College in 2013-14 before joining the Wolverines. He had to sit out last season, during which time he managed to improve his shooting stroke to the point that he's making 51.1 percent of his threes in 2015-16.
Robinson is one of those rare players who shoots better from three than two, though he's only attempted 29 two-pointers compared to 131 from beyond the arc.
He's actually in a bit of a slump, having made 32 percent of his threes (8-of-25) in Michigan's last three games. Before that, he was nailing them at a 55.7 percent clip.
2. Max Hooper, Oakland
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He's got a name that's straight out of central casting, but Max Hooper's game probably isn't the kind that a movie would get made out of. Unless there's a niche audience that would love to watch 90 minutes of someone doing nothing but taking three-pointers, because that's all Hooper does.
Seriously.
Hooper, a 6'6" senior wing, has attempted 168 shots this season. They have all been from three-point range. He's attempted 11 two-point shots in his college career, which began at Harvard in 2011-12 and also included a season at St. John's before spending the last two with Oakland.
He's made 79 three-pointers this season, hitting them at a 47 percent clip, and he is a 42.1 percent career three-point shooter.
Hooper has four games in 2015-16 with at least seven threes, including in his last two. He was a combined 16-of-24 from beyond the arc in wins at Green Bay and Milwaukee to move the Golden Grizzlies into a tie for third place in the Horizon League.
1. Buddy Hield, Oklahoma
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Buddy Hield is second in the nation in scoring, improving to 25.9 points per game after putting up 30 or more for the seventh time this season on Tuesday. That included a 5-of-8 effort from three-point range, upping his percentage to 52.3 percent.
He entered his senior year shooting a respectable 35.3 percent from long range, but like every other part of his game, the 6'4" guard has taken it to the next level in 2015-16. As such, it's no surprise he's probably the favorite for National Player of the Year honors.
Hield's 79 threes are among the top five in the country, with 42 of those coming in eight Big 12 games. Surprisingly, Oklahoma's two losses have come in the games when he's made the most threes, going 8-of-15 in the triple-overtime loss at Kansas and then making 7-of-14 in Saturday's loss at Iowa State.
How deadly is Hield from deep? In the loss to ISU, Cyclones guard Matt Thomas earned rave reviews for how great his defense was on Hield despite him scoring 27 points.
Statistics courtesy of Sports-Reference.com, unless otherwise noted.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
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