The A Dime Back staff is much like a child pointing a telescope towards the heavens to gaze with wonderment upon a vast array of worlds she will never know. Only in our case, the heavens are basically just UConn statistics. But the wonderment is the same.
For example, a quick glance at Rodney Purvis’ three-point percentage last night begat a 24 hour vision quest exploring data on all of the great — and terrible — shooters in UConn history. Fun fact: at the moment, Purvis is on pace to record the sixth highest three-point percentage in a season since Ray Allen’s final year on campus in 1996.
Our telescope during this journey was actually sports-reference.com’s play index tool. Here you can set your parameters as narrow or as wide as you like and bathe in the stats that return to you.
Now it would be selfish to keep all of these gems to ourselves, so here is a sampling of some random, and generally pointless, shit we’ve stumbled upon.
Highest single-season three-point percentage, minimum 20 attempts
1. Niels Giffey, 2014: 48.3%
2. Albert Mouring, 2000: 47.8%
3. Rudy Gay, 2005: 46.7%
4. Ray Allen, 1996: 46.6%
5. Omar Calhoun, 2016: 46.2%
Hi Omar! The downside of sports-reference is that its play index only starts being useful with the 1995-96 season. Some data is missing for the early years and you really can’t get a full view of a player’s value until the 2011 season. But we’re not splitting atoms here, so relax.
Worst career three-point percentage, minimum 50 attempts
- Taliek Brown: 22.7%
- Jamal Coombs-McDaniel: 28.0%
- Roscoe Smith: 28.6%
- Sam Cassell, Jr.: 28.8%
- Omar Calhoun: 31.7%
Hi Omar! This little list should basically just be a middle finger to the rest of college basketball because four of UConn’s five worst three-point shooters have rings. Suck it.
Quick Shout to Charlie Villanueva
The Chuckwagon’s career 39.3% three-point percentage is far and away the best by a UConn big man.
The Most Egregious Three-Point Shooter
This honor belongs to Jerome Dyson who attempted 137 three-pointers in 2010 and made only 29.2 percent. You may remember that team as the one that had Kemba Walker but apparently didn’t realize it, as Dyson racked up a usage rate of over 31 percent. Grrr.
The Purvis Enigma
Of the UConn players to shoot over 35 percent from three, Rodney Purvis has the worst free throw percentage by over 11 percentage points. Stanley Robinson (35.1% from three, 64.6% from the line) is the only guy even close to Purv (38.1% from three, 53.1% from the line).
In fact, the only UConn regular (at least five points per game) in the past 20 years to shoot worse from the line than Purvis is Andre Drummond, who at 29.5 percent registered the 17th worst free-shooting season in all of college basketball (min. 50 FTA, since 1995-96).
Most Fouls per Game in a Single Season
- Jake Voskuhl, 1997: 3.3
- Shonn Miller, 2016: 3.2
- Jake Voskuhl, 1999: 3.1
- Amida Brimah, 2014: 2.9
- Amida Brimah, 2015: 2.8
This just made me laugh. Poor Jake Voskuhl got more bad calls than someone whose number is written on a men’s room wall. Miller’s presence on the list caught me a bit by surprise but it’s only been ten games, so whatever. The current national leader in fouls per game is Patrick Muldoon from Eastern Illinois who averages a totally reasonable 4.6 fouls per game in 19.5 minutes. Here is a game highlight:
Jean-Claude Dan Ham
We are all aware that Daniel Hamilton is having himself a monster season, but just how monstrous is it? Hamilton is one of just five players in the country averaging at least 13 points, eight rebounds and five assists per game. The other four: Denzel Valentine, Ben Simmons, Gary Payton, Jr. and Kyle Collinsworth. That’s some elite company for the young Husky.
Ok, that’s it. Bye.
