Jon Scheyer Is Not Scared Of The Three

And he’s letting his guys fire them off at a record clip

The totals may reveal nothing in particular, or nothing the Blue Devils are keen to achieve. But attempting 38, 38 and 36 threes against Army, Wofford and Seattle, respectively, in the first six games of the 2024-25 season was striking and relatively rare. Also barely noticed, but that’s a different story.

Certainly the long-distance barrages have been entertaining, and so far not particularly relevant to outcomes against outmanned opponents. Duke won those three games by an average margin of 38.3 points, 22 against Seattle being the smallest edge. Plenty of room, then, to loosen reins and allow more minutes and wider participation for bench denizens. For example 10 Duke players tried at least one bonusphere bomb against Seattle as November expired.

Other than Louisville’s 39 attempted threes in a blowout loss to Tennessee, Duke’s pair of 38 tries were most in the ACC after 8 games this season. They’ve made a good share too. Through their Dec. 8 visit to Louisville the Devils were hitting at a .366 clip from beyond the arc, fifth-best in the ACC. Duke also paced the league with 10.88 threes made per outing during that stretch, about 1.5 more than anyone else.

Duke already has attempted more or as many 3-pointers in beating up mid-major visitors than in any game during Jon Scheyer’s admittedly brief tenure as head coach. The most previously was 36 against Bucknell in 2024.

Clearly Duke 3-pointers are not desperation shots scrambling to catch up, but shots that come as an engineered part of the offense.

College basketball tends to mirror trends in the NBA, where use of the three has reached new heights, inspired by recent Golden State teams led by sharpshooting Stephen Curry and the current champs, the Boston Celtics. As the Washington Post headlined a few weeks back: “The NBA’s three-point revolution has gotten extreme. How many is too many?” In several recent NBA games more than 40 percent of the field goal tries came from 3-point range. In three of Duke’s 2024-25 outings the Devils took a majority of their shots from beyond the arc.

This year 10 of the ACC’s 18 members attempted at least 30 or more threes in a game through Dec. 3. Wake matched Duke with 3 games of 30 or more tries from long distance. Louisville did it five times.

The ACC record for 3-point attempts in a game is 43, set by Wake in a loss to North Carolina in 1998 and matched by Duke in an overtime loss against Syracuse and its matchup zone in 2019.

Given 3-point fashion, those totals and others like it are waiting to fall.