Frequency of collegiate threes

hat is the offensive frequency of threes? A Division I basketball official can expect to see in excess of thirty, 3-point attempts thrown up in a game IF the talent is there. The national average is 34% of the attempted field goals. As it turns out, EVEN MORE 3-point attempts are launched by basketball teams at the lower Div-I (meaning lesser talent, especially in the post) and sub-Division I levels. That is for a couple of reasons.

The first reason that threes are a bigger part of these lesser-talented offenses is that it is easier to recruit good guards who can put them up. And that is because it is primarily guards (or guard-size players) who are what comes out of many high school programs but may still be big enough to play college ball.

Second, college teams at the lower levels do not have the quality or number of post players who can put in the "guaranteed" two points from 3-5 feet. And THAT is because the best have already been recruited to the larger programs! This all means that such teams have to rely on a greater proportion of their offense coming from backcourt players - meaning a greater percentage of 3-point attempts.

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