Jacobs On Bonusphere Bingo!

A few weeks back, Maryland's Mike Jones went on a shooting tear.

"He's got as good a jump shot as you need," Gary Williams, Jones' coach, said prior to this season. However, the senior's overall performance throughout his career, particularly the intensity with which he plays defense, has tended to depend on how well his shot is falling.

But Jones didn't get discouraged on the night of December 13 when he missed a trio of threes to open a game against the zone defense of overmatched Missouri-Kansas City. Once he got hot, the 6-5 wing proceeded to hit nine consecutive 3-pointers before missing again.

Jones jumped on the visiting Kangaroos for a career-high 27 points before retiring to the bench. Presumably he played decent defense, too, as Maryland won, 101-50.

Jones' nine 3-pointers set a Maryland single-game record. His performance ranks among the ACC's best dozen in the 20 seasons the current shot has been in effect.

Only Wake Forest's Craig Dawson and Georgia Tech's Dennis Scott, with 11 each, converted more threes in a game. Only Duke's Shane Battier and Virginia's Curtis Staples converted a higher percentage of their attempts while hitting at least nine 3-pointers.

• Craig Dawson's 11 threes came in a double-overtime loss by Wake Forest at Clemson. Dennis Scott's 11 came in a Georgia Tech win over Houston in Hawaii's Rainbow Classic.
• The nine 3-pointers by Wake's Randolph Childress is the ACC Tournament record, set in an overtime win over North Carolina in the 1995 finals. Childress scored 107 points in three games that March, another ACC Tournament record, in what was perhaps the greatest performance in the history of the event.
• Of the dozen most prolific 3-point performances to date, six came against ACC opponents, five were on the road, four were at home, and three were on neutral courts.
• A quarter of the top dozen 3-point performances by ACC players came against North Carolina, the only school to allow more than one. Georgia Tech's Dennis Scott and Drew Barry each made nine 3-pointers in games at Chapel Hill. They share with Childress the top bonusphere performances by an opposing player against the Tar Heels.