Breaking Down ACC Scoring From Three Pointers And The Foul Line

Stats are a tricky business with three new teams

A few things are immediately apparent when you take a look at how teams got their points last year.

In the category of half-finished work, Syracuse and Florida State finished around .500 in the ACC and could have enjoyed exceptional seasons with a bit more robust 3-point shooting.

Despite the impression Duke feasts on 3-pointers, secured in part by .377 long-distance dialing — the ACC’s best — the Blue Devils earned a respectable but hardly outstanding percentage of their points from the bonusphere (31.6).

Only Boston College, Miami and Virginia got as few as 15 percent of their points at the line.

Pitt was the ACC’s best at scoring from the perimeter with 38.1 percent of its points coming on threes. League laggard Louisville not surprisingly was the worst with 22.8 percent of its scoring from long range, edging out struggling Florida State at the wrong end of the point production rainbow.

Louisville was the only ACC squad to get a greater proportion of its scoring from the line than from beyond the arc, hardly a recipe for explosive offensive success (or excitement), as the ’24 team demonstrated.

On a more positive note the Cards did gain an ACC-best 23.0 percent of their points at the line. FSU was third-best.

Keep in mind that the three schools joining the ACC this season – Cal, SMU, Stanford – either have new coaches or a second-year man on the job (Mark Madsen at Cal). That makes their past performance at best a modest indicator of future achievement. Stanford, for instance, was notably reliant on threes and middling at the line under Jerod Haase. But he’s gone.

Incidentally you can see the effect of Virginia’s errant accuracy at the foul line, second-worst in school history and worst in the ACC, in the 14.2 percent of its points via free throws.