Hidden Three Point Heroes

This official ranking is silly. Yet it’s perfectly reflective of what can be simplistic criteria for ACC and NCAA leadership.

So go ahead and try to guess who’s on the list of 3-point shooters officially credited as most accurate in the ACC in 2020.

Probably can’t do it.

According to the NCAA standard (2.5 threes made per game) there weren’t many qualifiers in the ACC last year. In fact, there was one and only one recognized 3-point shooter — Boeheim, Buddy. Syracuse. 32 games. 97 of 262 from the bonusphere for .370 accuracy.

That’s all, folks!, as Porky Pig would say.

While Boeheim’s is an undeniable achievement, his leadership ratified by a universal and previously established standard, it is, shall we say, in need of further context. Namely that 18 other ACC performers who played at least 20 minutes per game in 2020, our standard for qualifying as a regular, shot better from beyond the arc than did Boeheim. They simply didn’t shoot often enough to materialize on the official stat horizon, their reticence as likely as not a function of team dynamics and strategy as personal limitation.

Boeheim earned his recognition by trying and making more threes than any of his sharpshooting competitors, including teammates Elijah Hughes and Joe Girard III who attempted at least 217 each.

But given how many players did actually eclipse the Syracuse junior, the standard by which 3-point shooting leadership is recorded is thus a source of partial information at best, and in its own way is a source of opacity, at least in 2020.

A fuller examination of shooting by ACC regulars reveals a wave of talents who might otherwise take observers unawares this coming season.

Who, for example, is conversant with the shooting of BC sophomore Jay Heath (.376 while making 2.1 threes per game)? Or the All-ACC caliber work of Georgia Tech junior Michael Devoe, the Jackets’ top scorer and the best bombardier (.427 on 124 attempts) among returning league regulars?

Or even the marksmanship of gangly Matthew Hurt, Duke’s top holdover scorer who on average played half of each game as a freshman and hit .393 from beyond the arc?