Arkansas basketball wins differently than Nate Oats' Alabama. I enjoy that | Toppmeyer
Ricky Council IV flashed toward the top of the key, caught some open space thanks to a screen, received a pass from Nick Smith Jr., and elevated for a 19-foot jumper.
Nerds in pocket protectors probably cringed.
A midrange 2-point jumper is sacrilegious to the analytics crowd.
For Arkansas’ Council, it marked his first bucket en route to 21 points in Saturday’s upset of Kansas. He sank two more midrange jumpers in the final five minutes of a 72-71 victory that advanced the Razorbacks to the Sweet 16 for a third straight year.
Eric Musselman's eighth-seeded Razorbacks join Michigan State, UCLA, Texas, San Diego State and Houston as Sweet 16 teams proving the midrange jumper retains a place in college basketball, even as the rise in popularity of analytics among coaches means many teams are shying away from 15-footers.
The analytical idea is this: A 3-pointer is worth 1½ times any shot inside the arc. A 17-footer is worth the same amount of points as a 2-footer. So, either shoot from 2 feet or scoot back to 23 feet and reward the risk by going for three points.
Nate Oats’ top-seeded Alabama Crimson Tide (31-5) mastered the analytics approach. No NCAA Tournament team shoots from beyond the arc more frequently than Alabama.
The Tide treats a 15-footer as taboo. Just 12.1% of Alabama’s field-goal attempts occur as midrange shots, according to hoop-math.com, while nearly half of its attempts come from beyond the arc.
Variety, though, is the spice of sports.
The Razorbacks (22-13) don’t shoot well from 3-point range, but they have the humility to step inside the arc.
Arkansas ranks 37th nationally for highest percentage of shot attempts coming from midrange, attempting 31.7% of its shots from that distance.
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Tom Izzo’s Spartans set the standard for midrange love, with 38.1% of their field-goal attempts occurring as midrange 2-pointers.
More teams ought to consider a few jumpers from the elbow. Through the NCAA Tournament’s first 52 games, teams are shooting a combined 31.2% from 3-point range.
Clank!
Arkansas is still playing thanks to its willingness to venture inside the arc. The Razorbacks’ 11 3-point attempts against Illinois on Thursday marked the fewest shots from beyond the arc during the first round.
Against Kansas, Arkansas sank seven shots from outside the paint but inside the arc.
Kansas made two shots from that range.
“All the analytics guys will tell you that a midrange shot is the worst shot in basketball,” Musselman said in February. “The good thing is, they’re not on our staff. And most of those guys, by the way, have never dribbled a basketball.”
“If you’re over the age of 55, the midrange shot was the best shot in basketball,” added Musselman, who is 58.
Villanova helped popularize basketball analytics with its 2016 and 2018 national championship teams that favored the 3-pointer. Other recent champions, like 2022 Kansas or 2017 North Carolina, rebuffed the bombs-away approach.
Analytics permeate modern sports. That’s why you see Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss Rebels going for fourth down inside their own territory or MLB hitters embracing a whiff-or-homer approach.
I understand the attraction of analytics. When I sit down at a blackjack table, I play by the book, not hunches. You want to give yourself the best chance to win, and the numbers say what the numbers say.
A coach is paid to win. If he believes a barrage of 3-pointers and layups and treating everything in between like a wasteland is the avenue to cutting down nets, well, fair play. Alabama's success serves as affirmation for analytics.
Still, I’d hate to see the midrange shot meet the same fate as football’s fullback or baseball’s double switch.
I grew up on Michael Jordan’s fadeaway jumper. For you, maybe it was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s indefensible hook shot, Larry Bird’s high-arching beauty or Tim Duncan’s fundamental bank shot.
Eliminate the midrange jumper, and a basketball becomes an exercise in redundancy, full of 2-footers, 23-footers, free throws and little else.
Hear me, I don't pine for the time when the 3-point arc didn’t exist. No need to dust off the peach baskets. The 3-pointer spreads the floor, spurs rallies and keeps games from becoming a brawl in the paint.
But, there’s something deliciously pure about watching a player curl off a screen and sink a 15-footer, drain a pullup from the elbow or swish a fadeaway jumper that no defender can block.
As long as Arkansas sticks around in this tournament, we’re bound to see more of those shots.
Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Arkansas basketball wins differently than Nate Oats' Alabama. Enjoy it
