Kentucky shot 117 threes in Canada. Will these Wildcats let it fly when the season starts?

Access to a box score wasn’t necessary to see the obvious during each of Kentucky’s games at the GLOBL JAM in Canada last week.

These Wildcats shot a whole lot of three-pointers. An unprecedented amount of three-pointers, in fact. By UK basketball standards, at least.

The Cats took 27 threes in the opener against Germany. They put up 30 long-range shots the next night against Canada. UK shot an astounding 35 threes in Saturday’s victory over Africa, then settled down a bit, shooting only 25 deep balls in the gold medal rematch with Canada.

For the tournament, Kentucky went 44-for-117 from three-point range, good enough for 37.6 percent and 29.3 long-range attempts per game.

Anyone who has paid attention to John Calipari’s time as UK’s head coach knows those numbers are outliers. Is this an early sign that a unique Kentucky basketball season is on the horizon?

Calipari started the week off by catering to the idea.

When it was noted that his Wildcats attempted 27 threes in the opener, Calipari, who has already uttered his near-annual proclamation that this should be one of his best outside shooting teams, said the 2023-24 bunch might be a squad that takes around 27 threes per game.

But?

“But we’re also a team that can get to the basket,” Calipari said.

And these Cats did that, too. The postgame shot charts were a revelation. A lot of three-point attempts. A lot of shots right at the rim. Not much else. Certainly far fewer of the “long twos” that have often been a staple of recent Calipari teams, always leading to consternation among the segment of Kentucky fans yearning for an offensive approach more akin to “modern” (for lack of a better word) basketball.

When the Cats took 30 threes (making 11) in game two, Calipari noted that number, as well. He also seemed to pump the brakes a bit on this Kentucky team filling it up from deep.

“You coach your team to who they are,” he said. “And if you’ve got a bunch of really good three-point shooters, then you shoot more threes. If you don’t — you don’t like to go 3-for-30. Because you cannot win. So it depends on your team. This team, a little bit inconsistent, but I’ve seen them all make threes. …

“So, yeah, this may be a team (where) we shoot more threes. It all depends on your team.”

Calipari’s comments throughout the tournament left open the chance that this UK team takes more threes than his other Wildcats squads of the past, but history suggests that chance is slim, at best.

The rate at which Kentucky shot three-pointers in Canada surely sent some fans’ memories back to the days of Pitino’s Bombinos — the 1989-90 season in which the first-year UK coach inherited an undermanned roster and decided to pick up the pace and rely on the long ball. That team took a school record 28.9 three-pointers per game, and those blue-and-white “3” cards that are still occasionally seen in Rupp Arena were all over the place.

But putting last week’s numbers in a Calipari-era perspective is likely to dishearten anyone hoping to see the Cats fill it up from deep in Rupp this season.

How do those 29.3 three-point attempts per game measure against other Calipari teams?

In 14 seasons as Kentucky’s coach, no Calipari team has averaged more than 19.9 three-point shots per game. That number was achieved by the Elite Eight squad of 2016-17, a group that included Malik Monk, Derek Willis and Mychal Mulder. That’s also the only Kentucky team in the past 12 years to finish in the top 250 nationally in three-point attempts per game. The Cats ranked 224th that season. Not exactly a track record of letting it fly.

In five of the past six seasons, UK has finished outside the top 300 nationally in that stat. The only exception was the 2020-21 team, which finished with a 9-16 record, often settling for threes (19.1 attempts per game) but not hitting them at a high rate (33.5 percent) and still ending up 272nd among Division I teams in attempts per game.

Calipari’s best three-point shooting team was his 2010-11 squad, a Final Four roster that featured Brandon Knight, Doron Lamb, DeAndre Liggins, Darius Miller and Terrence Jones, who all averaged at least 2.0 three-point shots per game. Those Cats made a school-record 39.7 percent of their threes, and a Calipari-era record 32.4 percent of all shots that season were deep balls.

Still, that squad finished just 142nd nationally in three-point attempts per game (also tops for the Calipari era).

So, no, don’t expect the Hall of Fame coach to just turn his guys loose from behind the arc in year 15, especially with the type of drive-to-the-basket firepower he appears to have on the 2023-24 roster.

There were some undeniable factors that surely led to more three-pointers last week. The GLOBL JAM games were played under FIBA rules, which, most notably, meant a 24-second shot clock, less time for individual freelancing with the ball and more quick passes — especially around the perimeter — that led to open shots, which Calipari was imploring his players to take. (Obviously, the shorter shot clock also meant more total possessions.)

Kentucky was also playing without both of its big men: Aaron Bradshaw and Ugonna Onyenso were sidelined from all four games due to injuries. That pressed West Virginia transfer Tre Mitchell into the “5” spot. The 6-foot-9 power forward was the Wildcats’ biggest player on the court, but he’s also used to playing on the perimeter, and he did it plenty in Canada, finishing second behind Antonio Reeves in both three-point makes and percentage.

And speaking of Reeves and Mitchell, those two players did most of UK’s long-range damage.

Reeves was amazing from deep: 18-for-32 for 56.3 percent. Mitchell, a 36.4-percent shooter at WVU last season, was 8-for-18 for 44.4 percent in Canada.

No one else on the team made more than a third of their threes.

Justin Edwards shot plenty (23 in four games) but made only seven (30.4 percent). D.J. Wagner hit some big shots but still went 6-for-18 from deep (33.3 percent). Reed Sheppard was 4-for-13 from long range (30.8 percent). Rob Dillingham, who brought the reputation as one of the best scorers in the 2023 recruiting class, was 1-for-7 (14.3 percent). And Adou Thiero missed all six three-pointers he attempted.

Those young players obviously have the ability to better those rates — these are incredibly small sample sizes, after all — during the 2023-24 season, and other factors like the FIBA ball (Edwards said he wasn’t a fan) could have contributed.

But the rate at which Reeves and Mitchell made threes is unsustainable over the course of a college basketball season, too. And until some others step up to their level from deep, the outlook on this Kentucky team in that area should continue to be met with skepticism.

In an interview with the Herald-Leader before leaving for the Canada trip, Reeves — a 39.8-percent shooter last season — was asked who might be his biggest helper from deep this time around. The fifth-year college player didn’t hesitate.

“I think Reed. Definitely,” Reeves said. “He has that shooter’s mentality. He definitely can knock down shots. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. Just him being out there and knocking down 10 in a row. Fifteen in a row. That’s what we need from these guys, as well. That shooting. And he’s definitely one of those guys.”

Sheppard made 103 of 262 attempts as a high school senior last season, hitting at a 39.3-percent clip while the primary focus of every team he played against. The 6-3 guard also showed enough in Canada to suggest he’ll be playing some major minutes as a college freshman. Sheppard becoming a threat from deep would be a start.

Other Wildcats will also need to step up to avoid a repeat of last season, when Reeves went cold at the wrong time — 1-for-10 from deep in the NCAA Tournament loss to Kansas State — and a UK backcourt otherwise hobbled with injuries couldn’t do much to pick up the slack.

Games like that — and the one that ended his first season as UK coach, when the 2009-10 squad went 4-for-32 on threes in an Elite Eight loss to West Virginia — will likely keep Calipari from relying too much on long-range shots.

Yet another reason for skepticism: Kentucky took 105 three-pointers over four exhibition games in the Bahamas last summer, with 38.1 percent of its total shots coming via the long ball. That 2022-23 team went on to shoot 18.0 threes per game during the season (320th nationally), with only 30.0 percent of their shots coming from deep.

For now, at least, the young Wildcats are having a ball letting it fly.

“I think we have a lot of dudes that can shoot the three, and hit it as well,” Sheppard said. “It’s a little early, but right now we’re playing well, and that’s what we’re getting into — we’re getting into the paint and shooting wide-open threes. … At the moment, we’ve got a lot of dudes that can really, really score. And it’s a fun way to play.”

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