How the NCAA's new 3-point line is affecting college basketball this season

Hayes Gardner | Louisville Courier Journal

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It’s not even 17 inches. Less than 2% of the length of a basketball court.

Volume shooters say it makes no difference to them, that the extended 3-point line’s impact has been negligible. Observers of the game haven’t noticed a significant change, and in some ways, they’re right. College basketball essentially looks the same this season, and there has been no drastic shift in strategy, no renouncement of the 3-point shot.

And yet statistics show that the new line — which was increased by 1 foot, 4 ¾ inches to the international length of 22 feet, 1 ¾ inches this summer — has made a small, yet significant impact. Three-point accuracy stands at 33.1% this season and by season’s end, it will likely break the record of 33.9% for the lowest percentage in college basketball history. Over the last few years, that figure has hovered around 35%.

There are other impacts, too. The NCAA emailed Division I men’s basketball head coaches on Dec. 15, noting that scoring (-3.8%), 3-point makes (-5.7%), points per possession (-3.0%), fouls (-6.5%) and free throw attempts (-8.2%) are all down.

Per KenPom, efficiency (points scored per 100 possessions) is at a 17-year low.

The NCAA found the decline in fouls per game to be the “most concerning data point,” per the email, but the 3-point line is also a likely culprit for the game’s changes this year.

“There are probably other factors involved, but the main factor is (that) the 3-point line changes are affecting 3-point shooting, which is affecting offense,” Ken Pomeroy, who runs KenPom, said.

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Three-point percentage gradually increases over the course of a season, Pomeroy noted, but this will still likely be the lowest percentage in the 34-year history of the 3-point arc. However, top shooters — guys who often practice from NBA range — say the impact on them has been null.

Western Kentucky’s Camron Justice, who is shooting 38% from deep this year, doesn’t think the new line has affected his shooting ability. He hypothesized that it may have a more pronounced impact on non-traditional shooters than it does on players who live beyond the line.

“Maybe the guys that are just now learning to stretch the floor and stuff like that, it impacts them a little bit more than guys that have grown up shooting the ball,” he said.

Kentucky has shot notoriously bad from deep this season — the Wildcats' 27.8% ranks 323rd out of the country’s 353 teams — but one of the team's supposed top shooters, Johnny Juzang, said before the season that he was fully accustomed to the new line, which matches the length FIBA uses in international play.

“It feels actually kind of close,” said Juzang, who has hit 2-of-14 3s this year.

Like most elite college shooters, Murray State’s Tevin Brown practices NBA-range 3-pointers regularly in practice. That’s part of the reason why Brown (41% from deep) is apathetic towards the extended 3-point line. When he practiced on the new arc this summer, he said his accuracy numbers did not decrease.

“I think they went up,” he said matter-of-factly.

Spacing and shooting

The biggest difference in the 3-point line’s extension might not be the act of shot-making, but how it affects offenses. In the preseason, coaches almost universally minimized the impact of an extended line, but they did caution players against stepping out of bounds in the now-shrunken corners. Louisville coach Chris Mack said it was a teaching emphasis all summer and in the preseason.

“I’ve done it twice this year,” Justice said.

But more generally and more consequentially, the new 3-point line alters spacing on the floor. A longer arc creates an expanded half-court offense, which can create wider driving lanes from the perimeter. It may appear minimal, but in the half-court, there is roughly 100 more square feet inside the 3-point arc than there was a year ago.

“Spacing completely changes when you move the line back just a foot,” said Northern Kentucky’s Tyler Sharper. The sharp-shooter is connecting on 35% of his attempts from deep this season.

There is simply more room along the perimeter, which the NCAA’s email noted: “Improved wider spacing is allowing more freedom for the offense to dribble/penetrate into the lane area.”

In some cases, that spacing is opening up half-court offense. North Florida takes and makes more 3-pointers than any team in the nation, averaging 12.8 made treys per game. Coach Matthew Driscoll says that’s in part because he has shooters capable of shooting from deep; he thinks the rule has not affected truly good shooters, only marginal ones.

It’s also because of spacing on the floor. The NBA has a deep 3-point line, but it also has a lane that’s 16 feet wide. The NCAA expanded the college arc to match FIBA's, but it did not do the same with the lane; FIBA's is 16 feet wide, while the NCAA lane remains at 12 feet.

To Driscoll, this is essential in explaining how much space players have to penetrate.

“There’s more space between the elbow and the 3-point line than any other basketball court in the world,” Driscoll said. “So now guys are driving more, and they’re spraying, they’re kicking it out.”

The line extending by under 17 inches might not seem like much, but it can be the difference between an open look or a contested one as defenders scramble to get a hand up on a spot-up shooter. Driscoll, whose team is shooting 38% from deep, is seeing more open looks than ever before.

“It’s creating an unbelievable amount of spacing,” he said.

Because the new line can make help-defense that much more difficult, Driscoll believes it is actually a net-positive for offense. Justice, Western Kentucky’s top shooter, expressed the same sentiment.

“I would think it would help offense, really spaced out,” he said. “If you have guys on the floor that can knock down 3s, then it definitely opens up driving lanes for guys who can get in the paint and facilitate.”

It seems counter-intuitive, a deeper arc helping offense, and statistics don't yet back it up. But as shooters adjust to the line, it could become an advantage for well-spaced offenses with elite marksmen.

Louisville’s top shooter Ryan McMahon likes the rule. If the man guarding him goes to help on a drive by Jordan Nwora, for instance, that defender will be unlikely to recover in time to get a hand in McMahon’s face if he spots up.

“I feel very confident shooting well beyond that line, so you gotta pick your poison,” said McMahon, who is connecting on 46% of attempts outside the line. “We got guys that can create things off the dribble, so if you don’t want to help off on me, then they’re gonna have lanes, and if you do help (off) me, then I can make you pay, so I really do like the extended 3-point line.”

A continuing evolution

Sharpe recently shot on a high school line, and he couldn’t believe how close in it felt after shooting from the current college distance.

“It kind of feels like you’re just barely flicking it to get it there,” he said.

Said Brown: “It seems really close. That’s more of a free throw shot now.”

That same arc is the one that college players shot on for more than a generation. As recently as 12 years ago, players like Steph Curry and Kevin Durant were flicking it less than 20 feet for 3-point buckets.

“I think that’s the evolution of the game. I think those guys had an impact on moving the line back,” Justice said.

Players like Curry and Durant, of course, seamlessly made the transition to the NBA’s line of 23 feet, 9 inches, and NBA players shoot from that distance with ease. In fact, ESPN recently reported that NBA players are now taking deep 3s (27+ feet out) at an increased rate.

In modern college basketball, the 3-point line became almost a universal skill, with the vast majority of players capable of shooting from deep — even frontcourt players.

This line change has made it more challenging for non-traditional shooters, and Pomeroy says he might be in favor of, in a few years, moving the college line even farther back to allow only the most skilled shooters to take advantage of the line.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to them moving it back to the NBA line,” Pomeroy said. “I think the more you move the 3-point line back, the more it becomes a true skill, and so the good shooters can take advantage of it and the bad shooters can’t.”

Driscoll, however, doesn’t see that coming. He predicts the line will stay as it is for more than 30 years and instead sees changes coming to the size of the lane and the shot clock.

Three-point shooting has increased in popularity in recent years as it’s become a more utilized weapon. Perhaps the line will remain the same for years, or perhaps players will quickly adjust and the court will be changed again. One thing, however, remains true about the valuable arc that has changed basketball for four decades.

“It’s powerful,” Driscoll said.