In an unusual coincidence, last year's first 7 opponents hoisted 154 3pt attempts and made 56, an average of 36.4%, and that matches exactly the numbers for this year. The first seven teams in both years averaged 22 attempts, making 8. Last year's eighth opponent was DePaul, so you know they were jacking them, to the tune of 6 0f 27 for 22.2%, a game that at least got UConn's 3pt defense mark trending down toward its final 26.8%. From that DePaul game on, opponents averaged 18 3pt attempts per game, making 4.4 for an average 24.5%. So Husky fans need not get too despondent about the perimeter wars yet.
Each year is different, and the numbers can be very game-by-game as you play a third game against Rutgers two years ago when the attempted 0 3pters and follow it the next day with the ACCT championship game where Louisville tries 29. In general over the years the first two months in OOC play has teams taking more 3pt attempts against he Huskies and making more. There are probably many reasons for this, some of which focus on most of the other AAC teams not being big on 3pters, but also that UConn is always focusing on developing its interior defense early in the year, and as the season progresses it works on honing the perimeter techniques to shut down the more open looks, cut off passes, and push teams further back outside the comfort zone. But an adept and hot team like Dayton can still change things up and put a 9-19 tally against UConn in the Elite 8 game last year.
As stated in many raging posts last year, even fairly large large jumps in an opponent's 3pt shooting or FT shooting in a game rarely make much difference against the Huskies unless they take a humongous amount of them, and UConn does not give up many FTAs and when an opponent shoots more than 25 3pters, the rate is rarely above 33%, and usually much much lower. As in the run defense in football, it's the battle in the trenches for the 2pt shot where seasons are won and lost, and last year UConn was also tremendous there limiting teams to 32.7% for an overall figure of 30.9% on all shots. But to make sure you have the best dug trenches for the March-April games, you do have to do a lot of spade work and practice a lot on the interior defense to create that great product we see every spring in its many different forms and lineups. The work on the court of cleaning up the debris in more outer regions of space to prevent a stray rogue asteroid from destroying the UConn's Tourney season can proceed without cause for much alarm.
As noted in another post yesterday, UConn is the sad record holder for having given up the highest 3pt average to an opponent in an NC game at 57.1%. But the bombs amounted to only 15 points, and though UConn shot only 11.1% from the arc, it at least got some consolation by shooting 50.8% overall and leaving the Vol players pasted to the floor in a 71-52 beatdown that was described at the time as "the biggest letdown in women's college basketball championship games" (not for Husky fans) and of which Pat Summitt said, "I've done this 26 years and I never experienced anything like today." She would be saying the same thing two years later after a semifinal game in which her team would shoot a more modest 21.4% from the arc.
Was it when Stewie's class arrived, or was it Nurse's class?
