ShareThisDespite the change to a 20-foot, 9-inch distance, it didn't take long for Virginia Military Institute to show it would keep firing three-pointers this season. VMI went into Rupp Arena on Nov. 14, let fly 31 times, made 14 and toppled Kentucky in one of the first splashy upsets of the college basketball season.
"We're still shooting it if we're open," coach Duggar Baucom said.
Baucom is trying a similar approach at VMI, and he won't let the new three-point arc change his ways. At 5-2 after Wednesday night's 92-74 win over Winthrop, the Keydets led all NCAA Division I teams in threes made and attempted each of the past two seasons (they also led the nation in scoring both years). They made 11.6 three-pointers per game last season (on 36.0 attempts per game), after averaging an NCAA-record 13.4 a year earlier.
In leading the nation this year, Keydets are 96-for-249 on threes this season, an average of 35.5 attempts and 13.7 made per game (with a percentage of 38.5).
"We only have two big guys who can't shoot the three, and they used to shoot some at 19-9," Baucom said in a telephone interview. "Now, at 20-9, I threaten their life if they shoot it."
VMI counts as a poor man's, East Coast version of Paul Westhead's Loyola Marymount teams in the late 1980s and early '90s. Remember Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble and Jeff Fryer? They pressed full court, ratcheted up the pace and rarely met a three-point shot they didn't like.
Baucom came to VMI in April 2005, after two successful seasons as head coach at Division II Tusculum College in Greenville, Tenn. VMI, which went 14-15 last season, attracts few marquee athletes given its military affiliation.
"Our biggest starter is 6-6," he said. "I try to find a way that makes us hard to guard and fits our personnel."
The change in the three-point line came about in an interesting way.
Iin 2005, the NCAA men's basketball rules committee used a high school in Savannah, Ga., as its laboratory. Members of the committee were meeting in Savannah and contemplating moving the three-point arc, so they affixed tape to a local court to see what the dimensions would look like and debate how the new line might affect the game.
One year later, the committee decided to change the arc from 19 feet, 9 inches to 20 feet, 9 inches. That rule went into effect at the start of this season.
"There were too many situations where you lost the mid-range jumper and anybody could shoot the three," said Dick Hack, athletic director at State University of New York Maritime College, the committee chair. "If the defense has to go out another foot to guard a good shooter, then you have to cover more territory and that creates more space."
Hack said the committee studied reams of statistics before deciding on the 20-9 distance and opting against expanding the lane. He expects the new arc to have a significant impact come conference season, when teams play familiar opponents with more on the line.
Hack acknowledged he hopes to see fewer three-point shots and more pull-up jumpers.
"I think you'd like to see a balance," he said. "It's like being a baseball fan -- as much as you like home runs, you want to see a 1-0 pitchers' duel once in awhile."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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