The best 3-point shooting college basketball teams this century

In 2018, Division I college basketball teams shot more 3-pointers than ever before, firing off more than 250,000 shots from beyond the arc.

The total 3-pointers taken have increased 66.7 percent since the turn of the century, becoming more and more of a factor in the college game.

So which team has benefited the most from that? Which team is the best 3-point shooting team this century?

To decide this, we couldn’t just rank teams by shooting percentage (which would give an advantage to teams that shot fewer 3-pointers), or by total 3-pointers made (advantage to teams who shot more). Instead, we created a simple 3-point index, comparing each team's performance in both categories to the full range of performances in both categories. Each team’s 3-point index is calculated as follows:

Furthermore, we only looked at teams that have been in Division I for all 18 years this century, leaving us with 316 candidates.

And the winner? Duke. 

The Blue Devils have hit 5,235 3-pointers since the turn of the century (second-most) while hitting 37.8 percent of their attempts (sixth-best).

Before we get to the full rankings, a few takeaways from the data:

• No team has made more 3-pointers in this century than Belmont. The Bruins have 5,449 since 2000. That’s an average of 9.5 made 3-pointers per game, adding up to 37.2 percent of all of Belmont’s points this century. For comparison, the average Division I team hits 6.5 3-pointers per game for a total of 28 percent of its points.
• Of the 316 teams, Gonzaga is the most accurate from deep. Since the turn of the century, the Bulldogs have shot 38.2 percent from the line, quite a bit better than the average of 34.7 percent.
• Of all teams, none have relied less on the 3-point shot than Texas Tech. The Red Raiders have shot just 8700 3-pointers since 2000 (the average is 10,171), and 3-pointers account for just 22 percent of their points this century.

Here is the full ranking:

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