“3-point defense” should not be defined by opponents’ 3P%
by Ken Pomeroy on Thursday, December 6, 2012
Saturday night, somebody noticed that Saint Louis had a horrible defensive 3P%. The first effects of the post-Rick Majerus era, right? Not really. It’s because the defense has little control over its opponents’ 3P%. As an illustration, let’s look at the best and worst “three-point defenses” in previous seasons on December 4th, and examine how they fared the rest of the season.
What I’ve done is taken both the top 20 and bottom 20 teams in opponents’ 3P% as of 12/4 each of the last four seasons, and recorded their three-point defense from December 5th onward. All figures are averages for the 20 teams in each group.