This is one of those things I've always thought of as being like whether the SIM over performs in the CT. I would tend to agree that my observations coincide with the OPs, and it never seems like my team hits threes that way down the stretch, but I'm really not convinced it's true over a large enough sample size.
One thing I would ask is what is the +/- setting really supposed to do? Is it supposed to effect 3 point shooting %? Or is it supposed to serve to limit the opponents ability to take a three point shot in the first place?
The reason I wonder that is because Ken Pomeroy did a study back in 2015 about different factors within a basketball game and whether the results were determined to a greater extent by the offense or the defense. Not surprisingly Free Throw percentage was the most offensive controlled stat. That is, the defense's impact was almost non-existent on a team's Free Throw % (the minor impact a defense had was attributed to the fact that the defense can choose who to foul in a bonus situation and may often focus on fouling the worst FT shooter on the floor).
Here is what Pomeroy said about the three point shot:
given that defenses have more influence on opposing two-point percentage, one can imagine that there’s at least a component here that involves offenses electing to take more 3’s in an environment where getting easy 2’s is not possible. Against a good two-point defense, invariably shots will be challenged.
But you can move back far enough to take an unchallenged three against most defenses. That doesn’t mean those will be high-percentage shots, even accounting for the higher payoff. But one can understand why good three-point defenses and good two-point defenses are often found together.
One thing that has been ignored in this analysis to date is the influence of luck or random variance, call it what you will. On a game level, there’s a lot of random variance in three-point shooting. So this result is not to say that a coach should pile up good shooters expecting to make a bulletproof offense. It’s simply that a good three-point offense will beat a good three-point defense over the long term. The offense controls most of what can be controlled, but randomness is a huge specter that looms over three-point shooting on a game level. Controlling for attempts, free throw shooting is most predictable, followed by two-point shooting, which is followed by three-point shooting.
Playing great three-point defense is admirable and for teams like Kentucky and Arizona and Baylor, who showed the consistent ability to hold opponents below their season average last season, that trait contributed to their defensive superiority. (In Baylor’s case it’s relative. The Bears finished 38th in adjusted defensive efficiency, but that was the best figure of the Scott Drew era. And having the eighth-lowest opponent’s three-point percentage helped.)
But there’s always the possibility that Sam Dekker or R.J. Hunter will make shots at the end of games against even the best perimeter defenses. The three-point shot is worth more than any other shot and with the exception of free-throw accuracy, it’s the box-score event least influenced by the defense. So it figures that the trifecta is a good starting point for explaining the unpredictability of college basketball. The reduction in the shot clock may reduce the parity in the game in the extreme margins but as long as the three-point shot exists at such a makeable range, there will be plenty of unexpected outcomes.
I