Thursday, October 30, 2008
Texas coach Rick Barnes has bad news for the rest of the Big 12 Conference: The Longhorns can still shoot three-pointers as effectively as ever.
Texas led the Big 12 last season with 309 three-pointers — 34 more than the second place team, Baylor. But that was from 19 feet, 9 inches away from the basket. The NCAA decided to move the three-point line back to 20 feet, 9 inches for the upcoming season.
Then freshman Cole Aldrich and Tyrel Reed celebrate a three-pointer during last year's Big 12 championship against Texas. Texas coach Rick Barnes said he is not worried about the new three-point line this season, which is moved back to 20 feet, 9 inches. Mario Chalmers hit eight three pointers in that game, leading the Jayhawks to their third straight Big 12 title.
And Barnes figured it would have an effect on his team going into the season. Not yet, Barnes said. Longhorns such as A.J. Abrams and Connor Atchley — the two leading long-range snipers returning from last year’s Texas team — aren’t bothered by it. “After being in practice with it,” Barnes said. “I’m not sure it will make that big of a difference.”
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Rule Committee, whose chair was Kansas associate athletics director Larry Keating, voted in favor of moving the line for the 2008-2009 season in May 2007. The committee listed numerous benefits that would come as a result of pushing the line back a foot. First of all, it would free up space between the inside players and perimeter players and unclog the middle of the court.
The committee had researched moving the line for more than a decade and concluded that shooting percentages would not drop significantly.
Now that the change has been implemented, coaches agree. Most of the Big 12 coaches at Big 12 Media Day in Oklahoma City last Thursday said the new line wasn’t a major concern.
Players are even more adamant that they can still make three-pointers consistently. Kansas sophomore Conner Teahan, who made 12 of his 20 three-point attempts last season, said the move was insignificant.
“I don’t even know how much farther back it is,” Teahan said. “It’s rare to have somebody shooting right on the three-point line anyway. Usually, you’re a couple of inches back.”
Kansas coach Bill Self isn’t so convinced that the new three-point line won’t change the game. He said he thought it was a necessary adjustment and would be good for college basketball in the long run.
In the meantime, however, Self thinks it will make players more susceptible to stepping out of bounds when they’re getting set to shoot a three from the corner. Because the line is further out, there is less space between it and the sideline. That’s not his only concern.
“I think it’s going to affect all teams,” Self said. “I think you’re going to see more teams take bad shots this year, because they’re going to take it just inside of the new three.”
Self likes to refer to these shots as “two-and-a-half pointers” because they are in between the old three-point line and the new one. He said the Jayhawks took plenty of them during their Labor Day trip to Ottawa, Canada, to play three exhibition games — and they need to learn to refrain from that before the season starts.
But Baylor coach Scott Drew thinks the new line could actually cut down on bad shots. Drew said it might force coaches to ban certain players from taking three-pointers.
“A lot of coaches have front-line players that can flirt with the old college three,” Drew said. “But now, we might not allow them to shoot that because of that extra foot.”
Self said Kansas probably won’t rely as much on three-point shots this season. As for Texas, well, that’s a different story.
— - Edited by Becka Cremer
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