Illini Basketball 2026-2027
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Sure can. The 750 attempt threshold was discovered by Darryl Blackport of Basketball Prospectus.
Here are some links I found via a simple Google search on the subject (the first references Darryl Blackport's work):
Why I Quit Caring About Raw 3 Point Percentages (And So Should You)
This sounds provocative but really it shouldn't
thecenterhub.substack.com
Predictability vs skill in sports analytics: 3 point shooting
thepowerrank.com
Advice on making the most of basketball three-point shot data
Authors: George Terhanian1 Corresponding Author: George Terhanian, PhD200 Hoover Avenue, #2101Las Vegas NV, 89101george.terhanian@gmail.com646-430-3420 1George Terhanian founded Electric Insights after holding executive positions at The NPD Group, Toluna,
thesportjournal.org
Interestingly, free throw shooting percentages stabilize much faster at 250 attempts.
"Every transfer...the lone exception." So not every transfer then?
Here's the thing, and why sample size matters if you're going to try to use the results of a sample of players as a predictor for a completely different player. A college basketball season is short, and you've got guys on here who are taking in some instances less than 3 attemps a game. Hit one rough patch and it can completely tank your percentage. That doesn't mean that future player is going to have the same thing happen to him.
Big Z for example. Through game 23 of the season, his 3pt% was 36.2%. Over the next 14 games it was 9.7%. No I did not forget a digit, it was under 10%.
So basically for over 60% of the season Big Z was shooting just as well as he did before he got here. Then in the latter half of the season he hit an extended slump that absolutely tanked his 3pt%.
Let's take a look at Stoj now, not here but at Cal. On the regular season his 3pt% was just 29%. How'd he get it up to 32%? In the two conference tourney games Cal played, he shot 7/14 from 3 (58%) which was good enough to raise his entire average for the season to 31.8%.
Stoj also took a lot fewer 3s here than he did at Stanford and Cal. A lot. And a disproportionate amount were in the beginning of the season. I think he got off to a rough start and then stopped taking them. For the last 15 games of the season he was averaging 1.7 attempts a game. Hard to break out of a slump if you don't shoot, though I am personally glad he didn't try to shoot himself out of it. Would have probably been better for his 3pt% but worse for the team. He deferred the possibility that a two game (or more) game heater would lift his average, because that's not what the team needed from him.
The bigger problem even than sample size is correlation/causation. What is your hypothesis as to why players are shooting worse here, only over the last two seasons? What changed at that point? And how does the fact that Big Z shot fine until more than halfway throught the season fit into that hypothesis.
My guess is 2 seasons was not chosen for any reason other than that it fit the narrative you wanted to advance, which is that transfers coming in invariably get worse at shooting 3s (except for the one that didn't) and therefore we should be skeptical that Vaaks will do well. Maybe this is also why we should transfer in a 9th man who shot 55% from 3 last season so that they can come here and shoot a respectable 35% from 3 in at least 28 games, of which at least 18 will be clear the bench type situations.
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I'd like to see Vaaks match Keaton's 2.4 made threes per game. I don't think he'll shoot Keaton's percentage, but he'll likely take more attempts.
I completely agree on your point about sample size, but I disagree that it is applied per-player. On the whole, all our transfers shot 666-1856 (35.9%) in their year prior to Illinois and 534-1630 (32.8%) in their first year at Illinois, so the aggregated sample sizes are sufficient (and the decreased % wasn't obviously due to increased volume).
Also, while that doesn't confirm a change in their "baseline" skill since the results are highly dependent on the context of the two seasons for each player (especially shot difficulty), we don't ultimately care about players' baseline skill. We care about how they shoot in our system, however that my inflate or deflate their %.
But we still can't apply this trend with certainty to player X, since any individual player had a very low sample size in 3pt attempts last year, their context may change in dramatically different ways than the aggregate of our prior transfers, etc.
If someone forced me to read into the differences:
Grandison: was focal point of defenses at Holy Cross as their leading scorer, at Illinois a catch-and-shoot 3 & D player
Guerrier: likely just variance, role was similar at Illinois as it was at Syracuse & Oregon
Domask: early season shooting slump + jump up in competition level
Boswell: no clue here, he shot 38% at Arizona... I know they used him differently
Humrichous: big variance (ie, not really a 41% guy just had good variance at Evansville) + jump up in comp
White: increased 4.3%, probably variance
Davis: jump in comp (though he shot significantly higher % this year than he did at Mercer)
Stojakovic: variance + sample size (again, all these players suffer from it to some degree)
Ivisic: late season slump tanked his %
But I can't bring myself to use "Illinois 3 point shooting is cursed" as a feasible explanation for any of it, especially considering the overall difference is negligible and likely explained by nearly half of the players moving up from low/mid-major to B1G.
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The Illini have only had 4 players reach 750 3 point attempts in their career (Frazier, Bradford, Brown, Richardson,) so I am unconvinced that it is a usable bar to clear.
If I take out the five who moved up (Humrichous, Davis, Domask, Harmon, and Grandison), the others were 403-1156 (34.9%) the year before, and 370-1134 (32.6%) their first year here. Their roles may still have been different.
The five who did move up were 236-700 (37.6%) the year before, and 164-496 (33.1%) the year after, but those sample sizes are on the small side.
I agree with this, but I think the problem is when using it as a predictive measure. If you can't come up with some reasonable (and univerally applicable) explanation for why a decreased 3pt% exists in the aggregate, I do not think it has any predictive value when it comes to future transfers. Otherwise, it's just a case of some players' average goes up, some players' average goes down, and in this small sample size we've just happened to have more go down than up so the numbers are down in aggregate.
My hair brained conclusion is we have some players moving up in competition level + first year in new system
Keaton made 2.4 and Shannon made 2.4
Vaaks at Providence made 2.9, but his attempts will certainly come down.
As long as he stays the same shooter, seems attainable.
None at all? I agree that it can't be applied to any individual future transfer, but ~1600 attempts seems meaningful for future transfers in aggregate.
Year-by-year comparisons are obviously much more prone to sample size and context issues, but they are interesting to compare with Illinois' team 3pt attempt rates:
Season | Transfers' aggregate 3pt% change from prior year | Team 3pt attempt rate
2020-21 | +3.6% | 30.0
2022-23 | -1.0% | 41.9
2023-24 | -1.8% | 38.6
2024-25 | -2.4% | 47.2
2025-26 | -3.6% | 49.7
3pt attempt rate does not necessarily correlate with shot quality since a well-designed offense with lots of skilled players can generate lots of good looks. But it could imply a change in style for incoming transfers that requires some adjustment. Just a thought.
So, we've never had a bad shooter at Illinois. We've only had good shooters and shooters who did not shoot enough.
And variance
But what is actually happening? Is there really a curse? Kylan Boswell is the major culprit being 11% worse at Illinois and he's the sage-burning lunatic that wrecked our 24-25 season by introducing the rash of injuries and mono plague.
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Yes, we can't rule that out for sure. For the # of attempts and difference in shooting percentages, there is an ~85% chance that the prior year 3pt% was indeed "better" (meaning not just due to variance). But some of that 85% includes possibilities that they were actually closer than the % ended up at (just as it includes possibilities that they were actually further apart).
Tongue-in-cheek on my Boswell comments, but he is the difference-maker here in the discrepancy. I think you're really close to that 34.9% number without him.
And without the statistical deep-dive, I'd have leaned that way anyhow. How does a 38% shooter across multiple seasons become a 27% shooter?
Problem solved? Kylan Boswell = "Illinois 3 point curse"
I made a mistake in these calculations. They should be:
Season | Transfers' aggregate 3pt% change from prior year | Team 3pt attempt rate
2020-21 | +3.6% | 30.0
2022-23 | -2.1% | 41.9
2023-24 | -1.9% | 38.6
2024-25 | -6.2% | 47.2
2025-26 | -8.3% | 49.7
Or, if you want to exclude players coming from non-power conferences:
2020-21 | +2.5% | 30.0 |
2022-23 | -2.1% | 41.9
2023-24 | +2.7% | 38.6
2024-25 | -6.7% | 47.2
2025-26 | -8.3% | 49.7
These look even more correlated with our 3pt attempt rate except for 2023-24. And while the sample sizes are small, some of the differences are large enough to still be meaningful. For this past season, there's an 87% chance that the difference isn't due to variance, and 88% for the prior year's class. There's only a 60% chance that variance doesn't explain why the 2023-24 transfers shot better.
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Moving up from low/mid-major may also have the opposite effect in some scenarios, where you have players who were focus points for opposing defenses and aren’t now, and/or heavy usage shot generators at that level who now get mostly uncontested feet-set in-rhythm attempts.
Overall, the question as a whole is likely far too complex to answer. But I’m also not sure it’s worth the effort as it’s something that was pointing up for a couple years, now pointing down… could be pointed upward again if we revisit in a couple of years from now.
If you take out all the guys who jumped a level and Boswell, then they were 34.3% before transferring and 33.8% after. But I don't think we should ignore Boswell just as we shouldn't blow his % out of proportion. We're talking about a 2.3% difference even with him.
My guess is that the staff is comfortable with that since ORB% changes the threshold for a good 3pt%, so the light should be greener with our size.
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