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Air Force men shooting it well from behind the 3-point line
Until BYU pulled away in the second half Wednesday, Air Force stayed in the game as it usually does, with long-range shooting.
Air Force had 25 points at halftime, and 15 came off 3-pointers. The Falcons were 5-of-10 from behind the 3-point line and 5-of-18 inside it. Their splits usually aren’t that dramatic, but one of the biggest strengths of the Falcons’ team this season is 3-point shooting.
Forward Tom Fow is Air Force’s best shooter, with 57 3-pointers at a 49 percent success rate, and Michael Lyons, Derek Brooks, Taylor Broekhuis, Zach Bohannon, Mike Fitzgerald and Todd Fletcher are all capable of hitting 3s. That makes Air Force tough to defend.
“When I look back at the 2007 season, when they had Jacob Burtschi and Dan Nwaelele and Matt McCraw, those guys could hit from anywhere and that made them dangerous,” Fow said. “It plays to our advantage with our offense, for sure.”
Air Force has hit 39.2 percent of its 3-pointers this year, which leads the Mountain West. Through last week’s games, Air Force ranked 19th in the nation in 3-point shooting percentage. The Falcons were just three-tenths of a percentage point behind Duke.
The most intriguing part of the Falcons’ shooting has been the across-the-board improvement. Last year, Air Force hit just 31.3 percent of its 3-point attempts. Fow, Lyons, Fletcher, Brooks, Fitzgerald, Broekhuis, and Bohannon all have improved their 3-point shooting percentage from a year ago. Fow shot a solid 38.1 percent on 3s last year, and has improved 11 percent. In his past 10 games, Fow has made 55.2 percent of his 3-point attempts. Broekhuis has had a staggering improvement, from 1-for-25 as a freshman last season to 34.1 percent this year.
“I think it’s letting them shoot them, having confidence in them,” Reynolds said.
There’s more than that, of course. The coaching staff is big on shot preparation, getting feet set to get a pass and be able to step into the 3. And Reynolds said that in Air Force’s offense, young players sometimes don’t understand when to take 3-pointers within the offensive scheme. Knowing when an open shot will present itself is a big reason for a spike in percentage.
“We don’t just shoot 3s for the sake of shooting 3s,” Reynolds said.
