Doug McDermott's Three-Point Shooting Highs and Lows

I heard on ESPN Radio the other morning that Creighton University's Doug McMermott has been hitting at a .580 clip on three-point attempts so far this season. The sophomore's high success rate behind the arc is surprising for a couple of reasons. Typically, guards are the main outside shooters and McDermott is a 6-7 forward. Also, his percentage from long-distance a season ago was much lower (though still good) at .405 (47-for-116)

To see if there were any interesting trends this season, I plotted his game-by-game three-point shooting percentages (below), based on his seasonal log. The size of each data point corresponds to his number of three-point attempts in a given game (see graph's legend) and opponents are listed along the horizontal axis. You may click on the graph to enlarge it.

First off, McDermott doesn't attempt that many threes, just 50 (of which he's made 29) in 14 games. In his most recent outing, against Drake, McDermott didn't try any treys, despite playing 32 minutes. Twice, against Northwestern and Wichita State, he didn't miss from behind the arc, but he was only 2-for-2 in each of these games.

His steadiest stretch of hot three-point shooting occurred in Games 3-8. In each of these contests (except vs. San Diego State), McDermott shot within a range of .667-.750. Accounting for number of attempts, his most impressive game was against St. Joseph's (5-of-7, .714).

Otherwise, he's had a lot of ups and downs, but not any prolonged stretches of poor three-point shooting.

Creighton and McDermott are next in action on Saturday at Bradley.