No longer can Richard Pitino deny that the Gophers men's basketball team has a problem defending beyond the arc. The numbers are too stacked against it to believe otherwise.
The Gophers are 4-0 and improved offensively, but the team is worse at defending the three-point shot than it was a year ago.
Entering Tuesday's game against Alabama A&M, the Gophers rank 12th in the Big Ten and 333rd out of 351 Division I teams in three-point percentage defense. Opponents are making almost every other three-point shot (44.7 percent). Last season, they led the Big Ten and ranked 15th nationally holding teams to 30.9 percent shooting from long distance.
"I thought our defense was bad in the first half," Pitino said of Sunday's 92-64 victory over Western Carolina. "At some point you're going to have to get burnt. Alabama had a kid [John Petty] who hit 10 threes the other day. So you're going to have to trust the defense behind you. You're going to have to get your hand up. At some point, it's not just [bad] luck, it's bad defense."
Junior guard Dupree McBrayer pointed to bad effort in practice when the Gophers have been working on three-point defense drills.
"We do a lot of drills in practice, so we just have to take those drills more serious," McBrayer said. "I think we're kind of going through the motions. Now that teams hit 14, 11 and 11 threes on us [at home], I think we're going to come with a different mind-set in practice."
Opponents who play at Williams Arena have been shooting the three as if it were their home court, especially in the first half of games.
South Carolina Upstate, Niagara and Western Carolina lost by an average margin of 23 points, but they shot a combined 45 percent from three (36-for-80). That included USC Upstate tying for the second-most threes ever by a Gophers opponent with 14 in the season opener.
