Villanova doesn’t need the 3-pointer to score efficiently
Texas Tech coach Chris Beard wholeheartedly believed in his defensive plan to slow — if not stop — Villanova during last weekend’s Elite Eight game. The Big 12 squad, which allowed opponents to score just 0.91 points per possession (good for the third-best defensive efficiency rate in Division I), clearly had the defensive CV to stymie the Wildcats, and Beard was determined to turn the Big East’s squad signature advantage — the 3-point shot — into an albatross.
The Red Raiders would continually run Villanova off the perimeter and force them to convert within the arc, a strategy that — at first glance — is sound. Attempts above the break, which is where Villanova’s shots often originate from, are worth, on average, about 1.26 points per shot, and through the Sweet 16, 53 percent of the Wildcats’ field goals were 3-pointers (of which the squad was converting an astounding 48 percent). If Texas Tech could throw a defensive wrench into Villanova’s uber efficient 5-out offense, then Beard — a Texas native — would be coaching in his first Final Four in San Antonio the following weekend.
Unfortunately, the plan was derailed four minutes into the Elite Eight game, a span in which Villanova went on a 21-8 run, culminating in a back-door cut that led to a Mikal Bridges dunk. Beard’s plan was shattered, and Villanova advanced onward, 71-59.
“Our defense gets a lot of attention. It’s our identity, which it should,” said Beard, slightly flummoxed after the loss — TTU had held Villanova to just 17 percent shooting from beyond the arc. “We made one mistake early, but other than that, we did pretty good on that regard.”
What happened? Villanova simply unveiled its latest wrinkle in an offensive barrage of efficiency — the mid-range game. Similar to the Golden State Warriors (or the Indiana Pacers), the Wildcats have fully embraced a shot that has been relegated to the scrap heap of field goal attempts the past five years. Per Synergy Sports, the squad is scoring 0.93 points per jump shot within the arc (not including attempts at the rim), a significant uptick from Villanova’s rate — 0.85 points per jumper — a season ago.
Read More: Charting the Final Four’s best players by Box Plus-Minus
Equipped with a starting five that can all handle the ball, operate within the halfcourt, and create defensive mismatches (not to mention convert 40 percent of their overall 3-point attempts), coach Jay Wright’s group doesn’t get flustered when opponents try to crowd them along the 3-point line. There are few forced shots. No one is jacking a shot under duress. Rather, each Wildcat — including “bigs” like Omari Spellman and Eric Paschall — is capable of and will drive the interior and either convert on a pull-up jumper or capitalize on a ‘plus-1’ pass mentality to find the next open Wildcat on the perimeter.
That said, the team doesn’t attempt many shots from the mid-range — they just are exceedingly efficient connecting on them, so the maligned shot becomes essentially a lay-up. Per Hoop-math.com, about 20 percent of the team’s halfcourt shots are within the arc (again, not including shots at the rim), which ranks 304th in Division I; but of that rate, the Wildcats convert 44.8 percent — fourth overall in NCAA play this season. Arguably no other DI team is as good as Villanova at the head-fake-one-dribble combination, and the team has used that to its significant advantage this season: not only does it free the Wildcats for an open jumper (of which the team connects on 0.95 points per dribble jumper, ranked within DI’s 95th percentile and up from 0.89 in 2017), but it causes a moment of hesitation for the defender, who has already closed out hard once before and been burned. That split second merely affords a Wildcat an open 3-point look.
Which is why when Jalen Brunson, the team’s point guard and AP men’s college player of the year, drove the rim against the Red Raiders but passed up the lay-up, play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle was stunned. “Brunson the fake…OH, he had a layup!” But it wasn’t an efficient shot: though Zhaire Smith had been upfaked, the lengthy freshman has a tremendous hangtime, so rather than take a contested attempt at the rim, Brunson kicked the ball to a waiting Paschall on the left corner, who quickly passed to Phil Booth on the left wing. While Booth didn’t make the pull-up jumper, the sequence provided a snapshot for how Villanova is coupling the mid-range with its perimeter dominance and, in the process, supremely disadvantaging opponents this season: Per Synergy Sports’ shot chart data, the Wildcats are connecting on 46 percent of its jump shots up to 17 feet (the team is also making 48 percent of its jump shots between 17 feet and the 3-point line).
Again, it’s a small sample size, but it is illustrative of how the Big East squad has evolved, negating those hard closeouts and tight perimeter defense. Rob Dauster of NBC Sports quoted an assistant coach who had scouted Villanova earlier this week, and the piece offered some insight into this transformation Villanova’s offensive philosophy: “It really comes down to trying to get you forced to close out, then they drive and kick. They want to get you in situations where you get two guys on the ball, they make the right pass and they get an open shot…. Whatever it is, they make the kick out and the right pass and you’re dead.”
Next: Best coaching job or not, Bill Self’s building on his coaching legacy at Kansas
So don’t be fooled by those who prognosticate that Villanova “lives and dies by the 3.” Yes, the Wildcats are prolific from long-range. And yes, the Wildcats make a high percentage of those shots. But the Wildcats aren’t one-note, and their embrace of the mid-range this season undercuts any of those aforementioned cursory statements. Texas Tech’s Beard thought he had figured Villanova out, and the Big East team made three of seven mid-range jumpers — just enough to keep a highly disruptive and aggressive defense at bay. “We held Villanova to 33 percent shooting tonight. We made more field goals than them,” he said. “They can obviously beat anybody in the Tournament with a 3-point shot. They proved tonight that they can beat good teams without the 3 as well.”