Historic start: How does Kentucky’s 3-point shooting compare to recent UK teams?
In case you missed it, this Kentucky men’s basketball team set a record by making at least 10 3-pointers in its first four games. That had never been done before by the program, not since the 3-point shot came into existence with the 1986-87 season.
New UK coach Mark Pope wants his team to shoot 3-pointers by the bunches. In fact, he was disappointed that the Cats attempted just 25 3-pointers — the goal is to shoot at least 30 — in the Wildcats’ 97-68 win over Lipscomb on Tuesday night. It should be said that Pope was happy with the dozen makes.
So how does UK’s start behind the 3-point line compare to John Calipari’s teams’ attempts and success from beyond the arc over the first four games of each of his 15 seasons?
We have a chart for that:
After the Lipscomb game, Pope said he was surprised that no previous Kentucky team had made at least 10 3-point shots in its first four games. He joked that he was disappointed Rick Pitino’s 1995-96 UK national championship team, of which Pope was a member, didn’t hit the double-digit mark in its first four games that season.
We have a chart for that, as well. Here’s one for the first four games of the ‘95-96 team with Pope as a player compared to one for the first four games of the current ‘24-25 team with Pope as a coach.
Last, but not least, here is a chart showing how individual Kentucky basketball players are shooting from 3-point range this season.
This story was originally published November 22, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
