College Hoops Basic Math: 3-pointer vs. 2-pointer

There is an extraordinarily simple principle in economics called "expected value". It is used for making decisions. Multiply the odds of an outcome occuring by the value of the outcome and you have your expected value. Pick the path with the highest expected value.

Choice A: shoot a 3-pointer
Choice B: shoot a 2-pointer

My oh my, what is a poor student-athlete to do?

Average team shoots 3-pointers at a roughly 30% clip and 2-pointers at a 40% clip.
EV for 3-pointer: .3 x 3 = .9 points per shot
EV for 2-pointer: .4 x 2 = .8 points per shot
Decision: fire the three, baby! Nothing but net!

Now you can quibble with the percentages and of course different players and teams have different 2- and 3-point shooting skills, but overall, you can at least see that it is a very close call. This would lead one to believe that the average team is better off shooting roughly half threes and half twos. And that is what we are beginning to see in the college game. And I agree with Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe that it is essentially a perversion of the main goal of basketball offense, which is to move the ball to a player with the highest-percentage shot. But when that player only gets credit for 2 points, it then makes sense to try the higher-percentage shot only about half the time. Not to mention that the repetitive "drive-and-dish-for-three" offense is far less interesting to watch than the pretty interior pass that results in a layup.

BTW, the real winner in hoops is to draw a shooting foul: EV for two free throws: .6 x 2 = 1.2 points per foul. Perhaps the "foul factor" gives the 2-point shot a slight edge vs. the 3-pointer, but it is still too close. The three should play a secondary role in college hoops in order to preserve the integrity of the game. Right now, it is of equal or greater importance.