Most threes are ‘uncontested’ to an extent… most teams don’t make half of them like UCLA does on average. They certainly don’t make 63% of them.
Michigan’s defensive issues (IMO) had a lot more to do with all of the easy twos that UCLA got in the second half. I’d start there analyzing the defense.
I’d also say that when you give up a point and a half per possession, worst UM defensive effort in the KenPom era, etc. — there are defensive concerns, even against a great offense.
The open 2’s are definitely more easily attributable to bad defense, but the made 3s are why they scored 1.5 ppr. I thought the same, about Michigan’s defensive issues having more to do with the 2pt defense, and the made 3s having more to do with UCLA shooting videogame numbers; but watching the film shows plenty of missed switches and mis-handling of screens accounted for open 3 point shots.
But, like you said, good shooting teams still dont usually shoot THAT well, even with open looks. Fixing the 2 pt defense is more of a opponent-independent fix, which is good because we shouldn’t plan on playing UCLA-level offenses again until the post-season (maybe IU?)
Agree @BleedBlue… Blown switches happen in every game, but teams don’t make every shot on every blown switch as it seemed that UCLA did.
TJ Leaf had 25, 10 and 8 last night and UCLA put up 102 again… those kids are just special