Saturday, December 22, 2012

Sun Devils Scorch Texas Tech on Three-Point Shots

I attended Saturday afternoon's Arizona State at Texas Tech men's basketball game. The Red Raiders are trying to rebuild with a young coach after a few down seasons and were looking for a win over a major-conference opponent. However, it was not to be, as the Sun Devils put on a three-point shooting exhibition, en route to a 77-62 victory. ASU shot 14-of-27 (.519) behind the arc for the game, but did particular damage in the first half.

I have charted the outcomes of ASU's 17 first-half three-point attempts, of which the Sun Devils made 10, from the play-by-play sheet . Each row represents a particular three-point attempt.

Successful Threes Time Remaining   Missed Threes 
Gilling 18:14 ---
Felix 17:31 ---
--- 16:35 Gordon
Gordon 16:15 ---
Gilling 15:59 ---
Gilling 15:21 ---
--- 14:46 Gilling
Gordon 13:03 ---
Gordon 12:50 ---
--- 11:55 Gilling
--- 7:11 Carson
Gordon 5:09 ---
Gilling 3:01 ---
--- 2:17 Felix
Gilling 1:20 ---
--- 0:12 Gilling
--- 0:01 Gordon

Forward Jonathan Gilling, a sophomore from Denmark, led the way for ASU, hitting 5-of-8 from downtown in the first half and 6-of-12 overall on the day. He came into Lubbock hitting only .358 on threes (24-of-67) for the season. Guard Evan Gordon added four treys in the first half, on six attempts; he went 4-of-7 on the day. He came in shooting .309  (21-of-68) this season from long distance.

In addition to the Sun Devils' high three-point accuracy rate, the way they produced flurries of treys was impressive. All told, as the chart shows, ASU made seven of its first nine three-point attempts. The first two made threes came less than a minute apart (with 18:14 and 17:31 remaining in the first half). A bit later came a torrent of three treys within less than a minute (between the 16:15 and 15:21 marks). A couple minutes later, Gordon hit a pair 13 seconds apart (13:03 and 12:50).

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