What happened to the Blue Devils’ perimeter shooting?
Through 20 games this season, Duke was arguably the best team in the ACC from beyond the 3-point line. Five different players were shooting 38% or better from long range, and the team made 38.7% of its 3-pointers through the end of January.
In fact, the Blue Devils were on a tear during the first month of 2024. They made at least eight 3-pointers in every game they played during January, and they shot 41.7% for the month.
The heater came to a peak against Virginia Tech on January 29 when Duke made more than 50% of its attempts (9/17).
Since they took the court against North Carolina on February 3, however, a switch flipped.
Against the Tar Heels, Duke made just five of their 19 attempts. In the next game against Notre Dame, the Blue Devils went a measly 4/18. They even fired 30 attempts against Boston College on Saturday, but they only made 10 of them.
Across the past six halves of basketball, Duke has shot 19/67 from beyond the arc. After a full month above 40%, the Blue Devils have made 28.4% of their 3-pointers in February so far.
There’s not one ice-cold shooter to point a finger at, either. Freshman Jared McCain, one of the team’s best sharpshooters, finished 2/6 against UNC and 1/8 against Boston College. Star forward Kyle Filipowski made one of his six attempts against the Tar Heels, and fellow sophomore Tyrese Proctor only found the net on three of his 11 attempts over the past two games.
Even senior Jeremy Roach, who leads the team in 3-point shooting this season at 44.3% for the year, finished a combined 4/11 against North Carolina and Boston College.
From a casual viewing perspective, it’s hard to find a tangible reason for the regression on tape other than, well, regression. The team is finding open looks, they’re historically good from long-range across their careers, and they haven’t fundamentally changed the offense too much.
The answer is probably that the Blue Devils need to shoot their way out of this funk. A team as good as Duke from deep will naturally take more than 20 3-point attempts per game, and sometimes you go cold at the wrong time. The last three games are far too small a sample size to say something needs to change, especially considering the Blue Devils won two of those games.
However, with postseason tournaments looming in the distance, it isn’t reassuring to know the team has some games like this in their system. Better to go cold in February rather than March, but shooting well for all six of the consecutive wins they’d need for a national championship would be a lot to ask for.
Duke doesn’t live and die by the 3-pointer, but it’d be reassuring if they did more living than dying over the final eight games of the regular season.
