The Starting Five: Creighton's Historic Statistic
Plus baseline exit screens, rip DHOs, and a counter to sagging defenses.
Welcome back to another edition of The Starting Five. To read last week’s version, you can click/tap here.
In today’s edition of the newsletter, I picked five observations, statistics, or clips from the last week of games.
Creighton’s historic three-point differential
The baseline exit
The rip DHO
A counter to sagging defenses
How UConn attacked UNC’s switches
[1] Creighton’s historic three-point differential
So far this season, Creighton’s offense and defense are producing historically extreme results.
50.9% of the Creighton’s field goal attempts have been from behind the three-point arc — fourth highest in the NCAA.
23.8% of Creighton’s opponent’s field goal attempts have been from behind the three-point arc — the lowest in the NCAA.
So if we subtract 23.8 from 50.9, Creighton’s three-point differential is a ridiculous +27.1. That’s easily the highest differential of any team in the country.
Top Teams in Three-Point Differential (2023-24 Season)
Creighton… +27.1
North Florida… +24.1
Sacramento State… +20.4
Montana State… +17.6
Arkansas State... +17.3
Loyola Marymount… +15.9
VCU… +15.3
Hawaii… +15.3
Chattanooga… +15.0
Southern Illinois… +14.8
Just two other teams — North Florida and Sacramento State — are in the 20s in three-point differential.
It’s worth noting, the list above isn’t exactly a murderer’s row of teams. Creighton currently ranks sixth in the country in Kenpom, but the next highest team on the list is VCU at 93rd.
So to investigate that idea further, the graph below plots team strength (measured by adjusted efficiency) on the horizontal axis and three-point volume differential on the vertical axis.
