Better Out Than In

It’s nice to have a passion, a specialty, a niche. Surely one of the most attention-getting, at least on a basketball court, is a predilection for taking and making 3-pointers.

Players have built entire careers on the strength of their outside shooting, or at least built formidable reputations for providing perimeter punch. At the moment there’s no one in the ACC you can point to as the prime candidate for a mantel worn over the years by the likes of Georgia Tech’s Dennis Scott and Duke’s J.J. Redick, NC State’s Rodney Monroe and UNC’s Wayne Ellington.

Several sophomores are building impressive resumes as long-distance shooters. Leading the way is Notre Dame’s Matt Ryan. He’s officially best in the ACC in 3-point percentage (.476) and the unofficial pacesetter in the portion of his field goal tries coming from the bonusphere (85.7 percent).

Virginia Tech’s Ahmed Hill has played more than twice as many minutes as Ryan through mid-December, officially ranks second in the ACC in 3-point accuracy (.446), and takes 65.1 percent of his points from long distance.

Boston College’s Jordan Chatman and Pitt’s Cameron Johnson also are among the elite sophomores in both 3-point accuracy and profligacy. Then there are the freshmen disposed toward firing from beyond the arc, led by BC’s Ty Graves and Miami’s Dejan Vasiljevic.