SHOOTING AT STADIUM CAN BE TRICKY
Stats in Houston suggest big venue affects scoring
The answers were as predictable as the question.
Is shooting, especially from three-point range, more difficult in a football stadium-turned-basketball arena?
“Everything was pretty much the same,” North Carolina guard Nate Britt said after his team’s practice Thursday at NRG Stadium. “I don’t think the depth changes anything. A lot of people talk about the depth perception, the backdrop. But to us, practicing out there, it was the same as anywhere else.”
Or as Oklahoma’s Jordan Woodard put it: “Court’s still 94 feet, two goals.”
And yet the numbers clearly show that shooting at NRG Stadium, typically the home of the NFL’s Houston Texans, is more difficult than shooting at a typical arena. In 12 NCAA tournament games here, teams hit a combined 29.6% from three-point range.
In South Region games last season, Duke, Utah, UCLA and Gonzaga combined to shoot 26.7%. Each of those teams had been significantly better over the course of the season; Duke at 38.7%, Utah at 40.4%, Gonzaga at 40% and UCLA at 36.8%.
In the 2011 Final Four, Kentucky, Connecticut, Virginia Commonwealth and Butler made 28.1% of their three-pointers and the title went to the Huskies, a No. 5 seed that attempted 23 three-pointers in two games; runner-up Butler put up 56.
Players generally don’t like to admit it, but playing at a massive stadium — NRG will hold more than 73,000 fans — can have a drastic impact on how a team plays in its biggest games of the year. That might not be an issue for North Carolina; only 26.8% of the Tar Heels’ shots are threes, ranking them 337th of 351 Division I teams, according to KenPom.com. Just 19% of their points come from three-point range.
Oklahoma, meanwhile, relies on three-
pointers for 38.9% of its points (only 13 teams used the three more). That might have to change.
“We’ll attack,” said senior forward Ryan Spangler, who has hit 32 of his 88 attempts from long range this year. “You know we’re going to get our open shots, but we have to attack and try to get to the rim and get some easy buckets.”
The teams got a closed 90-minute practice at the arena Thursday. Players said they spent extra time on shooting from distance.
“First time you go in there, you’ve got to see it, you’ve got to feel it,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “We said, ‘Hey, if your shots aren’t going in today, don’t worry about it. You’ll get used to it. Don’t let it affect you.’ ”
North Carolina guard Joel Berry II said he noticed more air balls than usual during the team’s first workout, but he dismissed the idea that the deeper backdrop behind the rim had anything to do with it. “You’re trying to shoot at the goal, not the stands or anything,” he said. “You just focus on the rim and try to knock it in; that’s just what you have to do. I don’t think it will affect anyone. I mean, it might. But not us.”
It could help Syracuse, which usually employs a 2-3 zone that can most easily be thwarted by hitting deep shots. The Orange play at the Carrier Dome, a 49,250-seat behemoth that also houses the school’s football team and could cause visiting shooters to have more trouble than usual.
Coach Jim Boeheim, of course, doesn’t see it that way. “Guys that can shoot can shoot anywhere. They can shoot outdoors. It doesn’t matter.”
The numbers suggest otherwise.