KU’s three-point shooting remains in a slump, a trend that can’t continue

What’s weird is that it’s not that hard of a shot. The college three-point line is 20 feet, 9 inches from the basket, and there is actually a good argument that it should be moved back.

Craziest thing about this Kansas team, then, a roster deep with shooters but a group that is currently turning three-point shooting into something that looks harder than raising a teenager.

The Jayhawks won a Big 12 Tournament quarterfinal game against TCU 64-59 on Thursday. It was an ugly, herky-jerky, foul-fest of a game and KU contributed to the bad optics by missing all eight of its three-point attempts.

That’s the second time in 10 days the Jayhawks failed to hit even one shot from behind the line, which gives them the distinction of being the only team from a power conference to come up bupkis on three-pointers twice this season.

In five games over the last three weeks, they have made just eight of 56 three-pointers. That’s 14 percent. You could go watch the meatheads at your local gym for an afternoon and see more than 14 percent of their three-pointers go in.

“You’re not going to advance in the (NCAA) Tournament,” KU coach Bill Self says. “I think if you ask all coaches: What’s the most important thing in the tournament? Probably making shots. You’ve got to make shots.”

Instead of making shots, KU has been clanking them, which is a rotten way to go through a postseason with its best big man hurt (Perry Ellis is expected to return from a knee injury for today’s semifinal against Baylor) and its second-best big man apparently done because of NCAA silliness.

It is a bizarre and concerning turn for a flawed team whose strengths, in theory, include three-point shooting. Even in the midst of this brick binge, the Jayhawks have hit 38 percent of their three-pointers for the season, which ranked 40th among 351 Division I teams heading into Thursday.

Seven different Jayhawks have hit more than 10 three-pointers this year. Brannen Greene comes off the bench but will probably play in the NBA someday because he is such a strong shooter.

This has been a consistent story line around KU all season, and the twists have been wild. The Jayhawks began the season unsure if they could score around the rim, what with Perry Ellis being more of a face-up scorer and Cliff Alexander needing polish.

By contrast, they were loaded with shooters. They hit 10 of 17 in a win at Georgetown, and 10 of 19 in a win over Oklahoma. Over a stretch of nine games and four weeks of conference play, KU hit more than 45 percent.

But three-point shooting tends to be the streakiest part of basketball, and Self doesn’t like streaks, so he has always preached to his teams to never let making shots become their identity.

Over and over, you will hear him talk about judging whether it’s a good shot when it leaves your hands, not when it gets to the basket. In practices, there are few things that set him off more than when he thinks a player only goes hard when his shot is falling.

Self must have seen a dip like this coming, too, because he’s been particularly public this season about putting too much into three-point shooting. Fools’ gold, he’s called it, and here is probably a good place to point out the mind-blowing fact that KU has actually won the last five games in which it has hit one or zero three-pointers.

Things like this can be particular points of pride with certain teams, and at a few different points of the current shooting slump Self has mentioned that KU hit only two shots outside of 3 feet and still won a Sweet 16 game against North Carolina State in 2012. Tyshawn Taylor, the meteoric point guard, didn’t hit a three-pointer in that NCAA Tournament until 3 minutes left in the championship game.

So there are minor changes to make — focus more on defense, and be sure to attack the defense — but the plan is apparently to continue much as they’ve been doing. The changes will be based on Alexander’s absence, and Ellis’ health. Not Greene’s jump shot.

“If it’s a good shot, you have to take it,” says point guard Frank Mason. “But you don’t want to just settle all the time. It’s the same thing I tell my teammates. Keep your confidence up, and don’t settle.”

This season has been as much of a grind as any for Self during KU’s preposterous run of 11 straight conference titles.

He has brainstormed ways to make up for a lack of low-post scoring, considered the benefits of turning Jamari Traylor into a point guard, suspended one of his assistants, coached a comeback against West Virginia that was so crazy he temporarily forgot about the last Border War game, dealt with an eligibility issue regarding his top recruit and has now played consecutive games with lineups and plays the team has hardly practiced.

So this whole three-pointer thing is not his biggest stress inducer this year, not by a long shot, and there was a moment early in the game that brought this whole thing to life.

Six or seven minutes in, Greene got the ball on the left wing and rose for the shot. His body was squared to the rim, his jump on balance, and the ball flying toward the rim with a shooter’s backspin. It missed, of course, but when Greene went back on defense his coach yelled for his attention.

“Keep shooting,” Self said, and he winked.

Self is such a good motivator. It’s one of the strongest parts of his skill set, actually, the ability to convince players to go hard and believe in themselves and there are few times better than a massive shooting slump to see the effects.

“We’re getting wins without hitting threes, so what does that tell you?” says Kelly Oubre, the star freshman. “When we start hitting our shots, we’re going to be lethal.”

That’s exactly what Self wants his players thinking, of course, to look at the positive and see themselves as bigger than whether their shots go in.

But he also knows the reality, that as much as he brings up Taylor and the North Carolina State game from three years ago, that was a much different team than this one. Most obviously, there is no Thomas Robinson around now, and no Jeff Withey wiping out shots in the paint.

Shooting is best done with clear minds, so Self’s de-emphasis of a slump works on a few levels. But those makes need to come soon, because it’s hard to see the presumably second-seeded Jayhawks making it to even the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament without hitting some three-pointers.

This story was originally published March 12, 2015 at 7:30 PM with the headline "KU’s three-point shooting remains in a slump, a trend that can’t continue."