Binging: ACC Players With The Most Threes In A Game

On back to back nights this month, a pair of players tied the NCAA men’s record for most 3-pointers in a game and shattered the record for attempts.

First, Robert Morris guard Josh Williams hit 15 of 34 tries in a win over Mt. Aloysius, a Division III school from Pennsylvania. Williams also set a single-game school record for the Colonials with 49 points against the Mounties.

Williams showed the same class as Denver’s Jamal Murray, who en route to scoring 48 points launched a late three in a 123-107 NBA victory at Boston a week earlier. The Celtics’ Kyrie Irving, regarding the move as a violation of basketball etiquette, threw the ball into the stands in disgust after the game ended, calling Murray’s try “a bullshit move”.

RMU’s Williams sank his last shot from the bonusphere with 0.7 seconds remaining in a 44-point victory. Apparently no one made a public peep.

The next night, facing competition that presumably ratcheted up a notch in degree of difficulty, Furman’s Jordan Lyons matched Williams by converting 15 3-pointers against Division II North Greenville. Lyons, like Robert Morris’ Williams, was 15 of 34 from beyond the arc and finished with 54 points.

(In the game following Lyons’ roar, the Paladins went to Villanova and beat the defending national champs in overtime. Lyons, a 5-11 junior from Georgia, paced the Southern Conference squad with 17 points.)

The DI record for made threes in a game stood for more than two decades, since Keith Veney of Marshall hit 15 in December 1996 against Morehead State.

As for three attempts, the previous mark was 27 set by Bruce Seals of Manhattan. He made nine in a contest against Canisius in 2000.

By the way, the three doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Steve Kerr, the coach of bomb-happy Golden State, holds the NCAA record with 38 straight games dialing in at least once from long distance while playing at Arizona in 1987-88. The NBA record for consecutive games making threes is held by the Warriors’ Stephen Curry, with 157 from the 2015 through 2017 seasons. And the NBA record for 3-point attempts in a game is 14, set in October of this year by Golden State’s Klay Thompson.

No ACC player ranks among the top 18 individuals in 3-pointers made, all of whom hit at least a dozen in a single DI game, or comes close in attempts.

The ACC record for threes attempted in a contest is 22 by Maryland’s Walt Williams in 1992. He made six. Clemson’s Marquise Reed stands second after trying 20 last season in a loss at Virginia Tech, converting eight.