There are 1,085 women's basketball teams playing at the NCAA level this season, and none shoots three-pointers more accurately than Oregon State.



And yet, when it comes to shooting the deep ball, the Beavers aren't even the best in their own state.



Meet the Eastern Oregon Mountaineers, the small school from the NAIA's second division that might just own a big claim of being the very best women's team at shooting threes among all of the country's four-year colleges.



In 27 games, the Mountaineers have hoisted 702 three-point attempts and made 43.2 percent of them. That's better than every other team in every other noteworthy association of four-year colleges -- the NAIA, NCAA and National Christian College Athletic Association -- and the United States Collegiate Athletic Association, too, a mixture of small four-year and community colleges.





EOU guard Payton Parrish

Anji Weissenfluh, EOU's coach who doubles as the school's athletic director, knew this season's roster had a number of good shooters but didn't anticipate they'd shoot collectively like this.

"I don't think you can ever expect to shoot over 40 percent from three," she said.

The only teams that have so far come close are NAIA Division I-leading Lyon of Arkansas, which has made 41.9 percent of their 515 attempts, and the Beavers in Corvallis, whose 41.7 percent shooting on 547 attempts is tops among all three divisions of the NCAA.

For the first eight seasons of Weissenfluh's tenure at EOU, her teams played "old-school basketball" with a post-oriented offense. It worked, to a point. Her philosophy changed after watching a number of three-heavy offenses succeed at the NAIA national tournament.

"I thought, OK, what's going to make us be able to compete at nationals?" Weissenfluh recalled. "I just thought, I've got to start recruiting shooters."

In 2008-09, the Mountaineers shot 475 threes, or nearly 17 per game. In her revamped offense the following season, they attempted 665 (20.7 per game).

Three years later, EOU cracked the 700 mark. One year after that, EOU shot 852, for 25.1 per game.

This season, the Mountaineers attempt an average of 26 threes per 40 minutes, which is far from an outlier. Florida Gulf Coast takes 33 per game, the most in NCAA Division I.

For Weissenfluh, it's not about taking threes. It's about taking open ones.

Although EOU has a variety of ways within its motion offense to create open, spot-up attempts on the perimeter, having a gifted post worthy of a defense's respect might be the most effective. The key to EOU's balance is 6-foot senior forward Stormee Van Belle, whose 14.2 points per game are second-most on her team.

EOU coach, athletic director Anji Weissenfluh

"If you can only shoot the three, you're not going to get open," Weissenfluh said. "When people come to games, they think we're just going to honestly jack up a whole bunch of threes. We do it all within rhythm. That's why we're shooting a high percentage. They're all great rhythm shots. We're not coming down and just popping."



But repetition has paid dividends for the Mountaineers. As much as 45 minutes of a 90-minute practice are typically spent shooting, Weissenfluh said -- double the time she typically allotted to shooting during practices over the past decade.



The strategy has worked.



The Mountaineers are 25-2, own a 25-point scoring margin and a 19-game winning streak and are 18-0 in conference play. They figure to play deep into March -- which might make this the school's first team to fire more than 900 threes.



All three EOU players who this season have attempted triple-digit numbers of threes are all shooting 45 percent or better: Maya Ah You-Dias (45.0), Payton Parrish (46.0) and Maren Herrud (51.0). And three others who have taken more than 60 threes all shoot better than 35 percent.



"We've always had good shooters," Weissenfluh said. "We just have more of them this year. Take one option and we've got three more who can shoot."



Their shooting success was most recently on display in Portland. Facing Warner Pacific on Feb. 9, senior guard Payton Parrish set school and conference records by making 11 threes in EOU's victory Friday over Warner Pacific in Portland -- a win that was the 401st of Weissenfluh's career.



Parrish made a pair of threes to start that game, but then missed her next four. At that point, she walked to the bench and asked Weissenfluh whether she should keep shooting.



"I'm like heck yeah," her coach said.

Parrish made her next three shots from behind the arc, en route to 42 points.



-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com