Kentucky off to historic start from 3-point line, but Mark Pope wants more
We knew this Kentucky team was made up of shooters, but so far, the Cats are hitting threes at a historic rate. The Cats made 12 threes in the 97-68 win over Lipscomb, marking four games in a row in which they’ve hit at least 10. According to Corey Price, they are the first team in Kentucky Basketball history to do so, which is saying something when you consider all the great squads to wear blue and white.
When informed of the stat after the game, Pope joked that he was upset that the team he’s coaching is doing something better than the team he captained, the 1996 national championship squad.
“Well, when you say that, the first thing is I’m disappointed. How did we not make 10 threes a game in ’96? Like, what are we doing, guys? I’m gonna call the boys and be like, ‘Boys, what were we doing?’ So that’s my first reaction.”
Jokes aside, Pope said he wants his team to shoot more. They’ve only attempted 26 or more threes in one game, the win over Bucknell, in which they made 13 of 36. Pope would like the number of attempts to be closer to that from now on.
“My second reaction is, that’s great. We’re gonna have some games where we don’t make 10 threes. I’m worried about the attempts, right? We’ve got to keep pushing the attempts. I’m nitpicking, because our guys played terrific tonight. I thought they were great, but we only had 10 assists. That’s not us. Give credit to Lipscomb. They were really out of help a lot in this game and so it ended up with a lot of guys having open shots where they didn’t have to earn it for each other. It was just standing there open and we shot 48% from three.
“So, I’d just like to get more of them, but I’m proud of that. It’s a really important part of our team. I would be more excited if we were at 35 three-point attempts a game, but I’ll take the 10 makes for sure.”
Here are the three-point stats through four games. Hopefully, we get to add to this table with ten or more makes on 35 or more attempts on Friday.
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| Opponent | 3-Point Makes | 3-Point Attempts |
| Wright State | 11 | 24 |
| Bucknell | 13 | 36 |
| Duke | 10 | 25 |
| Lipscomb | 12 | 25 |
Koby Brea still the best shooter in college basketball
Koby Brea was a perfect 3-3 from behind the arc tonight, finishing with 12 points, 7 rebounds, and 1 assist in 23 minutes. Through four games, he is 15-19 (78.9%) from three-point range. Brea already led the nation in three-point percentage coming into this game (75%) — and all of last season (49.8%). Tonight just pads that total.
Pope spent a lot of time praising Brea’s rebounding and defense tonight, but couldn’t help but circle back to his shooting, which busted Lipscomb’s zone in the second half.
“There’s a lot of growth for him, but man, he’s putting together a pretty fun product, right? It’s pretty fun. It’s hard. We talked about it. Lipscomb came in having played 34 possessions of zone at a 0.511 points per possession. That’s ridiculous. Guys, that’s so good. And so they, they kind of saved it and went to the second half, and then it’s like, you’ve got Koby Brea running around shooting threes. It’s like, we can’t do that, you know? So, I think we’re over two points per possession against the zone. He just is a fun player to coach. He’s a beautiful human being.”
“For sure,” Brea said after the game when asked if he’s surprised if he misses a three. “I feel like something is missing. It’s the game, it is probably going to happen, but it’s just about moving on to the next one. I try to do that as much as I can anytime I miss one. Just focus on the next one.”
As Jon Rothstein put it, Brea’s shooting numbers are like something out of a video game. Corey Price pointed out that his 78.9% from three is a better mark than Kentucky’s leading free-throw shooter in 10 of the last 26 seasons.
Just keep shooting, Koby!
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