Think about this for a second: in their loss to UAB on Wednesday night, SMU was outscored 30-16 in the second half. They shot just 4-20 (20%) in the process, missing 12 of the 14 threes they attempted while grabbing just four offensive rebounds and committing four turnovers.
And believe it or not, that was their good half. UAB was up 17-12 on SMU at the break. All told, the Mustangs shot just 17.4% (8-46) from the floor and 10.3% (3-29) from three in a 47-28 loss. The 28 points they scored is the second-lowest point total of the season. Towson managed just 27 points against Drexel on January 4th while Louisville allowed Arkansas State to scored 27 on November 22nd. The 17.4% is the lowest field goal percentage any team has shot this season.
To make this performance even more ironic, SMU shot 72.3% from the floor against Lamar last season, the highest single-game total for any Divison I team in the country.
There’s more. SMU missed 38 shots from the floor but managed to get just six rebounds, leading to an OR% of 18.2, which actually shouldn’t be a surprise given that the Mustangs are 334th in the country in that statistic. Here’s the stranger stat -- 29 of SMU’s 46 shots were from three, and they made three of them.
Seriously!
That deserves repeating: they took 46 shots in the game and went 3-29 from three. Attack the basket, maybe? Draw a foul? Find an assist? Something? Anything but settling for a three? Shot selection isn’t exactly SMU’s strong suit this season, however. They are 240th in the country in 3PT%, but 46.6% of their FG’s this season are take from beyond the arc, the second-highest rate in the country. That, my friends, is what we call inefficiency.
The fact that SMU took that many threes is probably the reason why they turned the ball over just seven times. You can’t turn it over when you are firing a shot up from 25 feet, right? There’s a lot of craziness in this box score, but I think the fact that SMU turned the ball over just seven times and only scored 28 points is simply amazing.
So is the fact that SMU scored just 0.519 PPP last night. That means, on average, SMU scored a field goal just about every fourth time down the floor.
And this team is coming to the Big East.
They are going to get massacred.
Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @ballinisahabit.