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College basketball teams combine for horrific 3-point performance in conference championship
By Paul Harvey
Published:
College basketball is heating up as we enter the major stretch of conference tournaments. We will reach Selection Sunday this weekend, ushering in the official start of March Madness for teams far and wide!
Before we get to the full bracket, conference championships will be decided, and Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s once again met to decide the West Coast Conference Tournament on Tuesday night. The two rivals have dominated the WCC for over a decade, and the two sides met again in the WCC Tournament Championship.
This time around, it was the Gaels entering as the No. 1 seed in the conference and higher ranked team (No. 19 on the AP Poll) after a 17-1 mark in league play. Saint Mary’s even swept the season series against Gonzaga with 2 head-to-head wins, but things would not work out that way in the title game.
To be clear, neither team played particularly well, but it was 18 turnovers by the Gaels that provided the final nail in the coffin. However, both teams combined for a historic — and horrific — shooting performance.
When the game ended, the Bulldogs finished just 1-for-15 from 3-point range for a 6.7% shooting mark. Remarkably, the Gaels were somehow worse, missing all 16 of their 3-point attempts. Saint Mary’s Mikey Lewis (0-for-7) and Gonzaga’s Khalif Battle (0-for-4) were the worst offenders.
Combined, that works out to a 3.2% 3-point shooting percentage (1-for-31) in the game. According to Jared Berson, that’s the worst 3-point shooting percentage in a DI game since 2020. And it is actually the SEC who claims that game with Tennessee and Vanderbilt combining to shoot 1-for-33 (3%) from deep in that contest.
It goes without saying, but both the Vols and Commodores will hope for slightly better numbers when they begin their respective SEC Tournament journeys in Nashville.
Paul Harvey lives in Atlanta and covers SEC football.
