Purdue Basketball: We are Deadly Behind the Arc

The BoilerBall Twitter handle (AKA Chris Forman), tweeted out this photo today:

Wow.

I thought we were the school of only the post players? According to this graphic we are lethal behind that three point line now. Remember a couple of years ago when teams could just zone us, pack it in and let us shoot? We couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn those years and it lead to a lot of losses, early exits in the B1G tournament and in the big dance.

I dare teams to zone us now.

Our top five leading three point shooters are all over 40%, that is asinine. Biggie is shooting 50%(!), a 20% improvement from the year before. Part of that is taking more controlled and shots that work within the flow of the offense. We knew that Ryan Cline was an absolute dead eye, but what about our man 3J Thompson.

He makes plays after plays for us. At Michigan State he hit a huge three with about 5 minutes to go in the game. From year one to now, he has improved by 13%. I will take him over most ball handlers in the B1G right now, doesn’t turn the ball over, makes great passes, shoots over 40% from three AND can play defense.

This Purdue team is fun to watch and we have a lot of talent on the roster. But there is no hiding that CMP and Co. have improved these players drastically. If you want to develop as a basketball player over the course of a four year career, there is no better place to be than in West Lafayette, CMP will continue to do his job and we will continue to rack up wins.